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Debate on the Address - 1 December 2003

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Mr. David Curry (Skipton and Ripon): First, I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his welcoming words in reference to my team. Occasionally I think I have more disciples than The Almighty, but let me make it clear that none of us is a miracle worker.

Secondly, my family home is near Saffron Walden; therefore when I make references to the communities plan or to airport expansion, it should be clear that I shall be affected by those policies. I just wanted to put that on the record so that there should be no misunderstanding.

Most of my remarks will, perhaps eccentrically, be addressed to what is in the Queen's Speech, but I shall start with what is not in the speech. Something very important is missing: any mention of the draft Bill on regional assemblies. Both the right hon. Gentleman and I represent constituencies that will be affected by that policy. The Prime Minister can hardly contain his enthusiasm for the idea, and it will be interesting to learn how many people participating in "the big conversation" came and spontaneously said to him, "Prime Minister, I just want you to know what a bloomin' good idea these regional assemblies are." I have to say that people making such a demand have not been crowding out my constituency surgeries.

A decision has been made to hold referendums in the three northern regions, based on expressions of interest that were so meagre as to be practically subliminal; and now we have preliminary proposals on the reorganisation of two-tier government in those areas—with no price tag attached, of course. We know that that reorganisation will be unwanted, unnecessary, disruptive and expensive.

Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab): I am interested in finding out the right hon. Gentleman's policy on regional government. Last week on Radio 4's "Any Questions?" he said that if powers "were genuinely devolved from London, I would be much more sympathetic than I am now."

When did it become Conservative party policy to favour stronger regional government than that which is currently on offer? Precisely which powers would he transfer to the regions?

Mr. Curry: The hon. Gentleman listened to "Any Questions", which came from Stockton-on-Tees. He will be happy to know that Jonathan Dimbleby conducted a poll of the audience immediately after the question. He asked how many people were in favour and how many people were against: 20 were in favour and more than 200 were against. That is in the Labour heartland of Stockton-on-Tees. My position has always been clear. To save trouble in future, I have always said that if the regions were offered devolution in the same way as Scotland, we would be bound to consider that to ascertain whether we could benefit from it. However, as there is not a snowball's chance in hell of the Government offering anything like that, the question is purely academic.

The Deputy Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman mentioned that perhaps the referendum Bill or the regional assemblies Bill does not appear in the proposed legislation. He must be well aware that I have promised that after the referendum takes place a Bill will be brought before the House that spells out the proposed powers. That is the proper way to proceed. [Interruption.] It makes sense to proceed in that way after people have voted, rather than introducing proposals beforehand. The right hon. Gentleman will have a chance to tell us whether the proposed powers are sufficient for him to give them his endorsement, along with the regional assemblies and regional Bills.

Mr. Curry: The right hon. Gentleman has said something absolutely extraordinary. He has said that people will be invited to vote and then will be told on what they have voted. It is like going to the polls without being told what parties are in contention to form a Government. That is what the right hon. Gentleman has said.

The Deputy Prime Minister: The position is exactly the same as in Scotland and Wales. We have produced a White Paper that spells out the proposed powers and how things will be done. We have promised the House to produce the Bill in the July before the referendum takes place in the autumn. That is precisely what happened in London and it is precisely what happened in Scotland and Wales. That is the proper way in which to proceed.

Mr. Curry: The right hon. Gentleman has spent a lot of time today talking about planning. I invite him to consider the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill, which will conclude its passage in this place next week. Let him consider the initial shape of that Bill and the concluding shape. The two shapes are almost unrecognisably different. If people must come to a conclusion on whether they want regional assemblies, they must know clearly what they are to vote for before they vote. They will then discover what a meagre and puny bunch of assemblies they have been offered. We know that because we have a little document from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister that tells people in Yorkshire and Humberside about elected regional assemblies. It is a profoundly misleading leaflet. It was produced at public cost and it argues only one side of the cause. The only suggestion that people might say no is a handful of little thumbs pointing down.

Of course, there are some things that will set pulses racing in Skipton. There is the reference to a regional cultural consortium. That certainly has them seized in Skipton. We are told that there might even be a civic forum. I am sure that we will all be grateful for small mercies. However, the document is misleading when it comes to powers. The impression is given that there will be executive decisions. It is misleading as to the competence of the assembly because it is said that there will be a Government grant. The Government always refer to Government money. They seem to forget where the money comes from. There will be a Government grant so that expenditure of £570 million can be controlled. That is £1.5 million a day. Identifiable public expenditure in Yorkshire and Humberside in the year 2001–02 was £25.5 billion, and it is ignored. That is £70 million a day. In other words, the assembly will control, to use the Deputy Prime Minister's words, £1.5 million out of £70 million a day, which is 2 per cent. of public expenditure. That shows how flimsy, insubstantial and token these bodies will be.
The Deputy Prime Minister has even hinted at a great northern alliance to squeeze more money out of the Government. Whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer has approved of that is not very clear. The situation is also misleading when it comes to accountability. The councillors who are nearest to the people are district councillors. What happens when there are 30 to 35 regional members who represent constituencies? I am taking the Scottish example, on which I assume the electoral system will be based. They would each represent about 250,000 people. In north Yorkshire, for example, there would be two assembly people representing an area stretching from the Cumbrian border to Scarborough.

The Deputy Prime Minister: I think that the right hon. Gentleman was a Member of the European Parliament. How many people did he represent as one person?

Mr. Curry: One reason why elections to the European Parliament have always been disappointing is that people do not make a connection between them and anything being at stake, such as a change of power. The right hon. Gentleman knows that is the case, given that the Government and everybody else are currently anguishing about election turnouts. I invite the Deputy Prime Minister to accept a wager—what turnout does he think there would be at the second set of elections for regional parliaments? That turnout would make the turnout for European Parliament elections look positively torrential.

Mr. Betts: I should like to find out where the right hon. Gentleman stands on regional government. A few minutes ago, in response to an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), he said that if the Government offered the English regions the same powers as the Scottish Parliament the Opposition would have to take that seriously. However, as that is not going to be offered, he said that he would not deal with the question. Is he therefore suggesting that a future Conservative Government whom he served as Secretary of State would offer the English regions the same powers as the Scottish Parliament? Does he favour a stronger position on regional government than he has been advocating?

Mr. Curry: No. I was asked about the views that I had expressed on the subject, and I told the House honestly what they were. It is as simple as that. The policy of the Conservative party is to be against regional assemblies and reinforce the power of existing councils. I am entirely happy with that policy.

Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle) (Lab): The right hon. Gentleman has been a local government Minister in the past and knows all about the costs of reorganisation. One thing that concerns me is the fact that we are going to embark on a hugely expensive reorganisation of local government. Does the right hon. Gentleman have any idea of how much that reorganisation will cost; and does he agree that when voters come to put their cross on the ballot paper there should be an estimate of the cost to local government of the reorganisation?

Mr. Curry: That should certainly happen, and the Government should spell out clearly what will happen if there is either no consensus in the ballot on the shape of local government to succeed the two-tier system or if there is only a small majority on a low turnout. When we debated the issue in the House the Government's reaction to the possibility of such a turnout was utterly obscure. We need to know how they would respond before people go to the polls.

Mr. Peter Pike (Burnley) (Lab): Does the right hon. Gentleman not accept that the Northwest Development Agency is doing excellent work in the north-west and is involved in many important projects in constituencies such as mine? There is only one fault at the moment—there is no democratic accountability. I welcome the opportunity for democratic accountability that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister is proposing.

Mr. Curry: The total amount of public expenditure in the north-west is £36 billion. Nobody pretends that the regional assembly would have more than a tiny fraction of that sum, nor do I accept that that there is no accountability for that money. There is accountability to Parliament, where the estimates originate. I do not buy the hon. Gentleman's argument, even though I usually have a high regard for him.

The Deputy Prime Minister said that the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill would create a fairer and faster planning system, with greater community participation. Nobody can object to that ambition, but can it be delivered? After all, the Bill has been around for a long time. It is supposed to democratise planning, but does the regional framework make that process more, rather than less, remote? The right hon. Gentleman dismissed concerns that the removal of the county role would reduce local democracy, and did not spell out whether there would be any statutory consultation role for councils. He said that they would have their say, but that should be a practical consideration, not merely an aspirational goal.

The measure is supposed to speed things up, but there is an extraordinarily complex web of schemes, including a local development framework, a local development scheme, a local development scheme document, local development plan documents, and development plans and policies, each with their own timetable for community involvement, revision and appeals. The unhappy Minister for Housing and Planning is no doubt the parliamentary porter who will have to carry all that excess baggage through the House next week.

The Bill, of course, is not the last of the major planning changes. I am glad about what the Deputy Prime Minister said about proposals to commute section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and give developers the option of paying a fixed tariff. It was not clear whether he intended that to be covered by the Bill, because the consultation, I believe, does not finish until 8 January. It is therefore not clear whether things that flow from the consultation will come into the Bill. As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) said, there are enormous implications for the provision of affordable housing. If a developer can buy himself out of the right to put a certain proportion of affordable housing into a development, there will be a danger that he will buy the right to deal with the easier developments, while the housing associations will be left to deal with the more difficult ones and will find that their ability to cross-subsidise has been affected. We do not want to return to the ghettoisation of social housing.

Jim Knight (South Dorset) (Lab): Given the right hon. Gentleman's concern about affordable housing, does he still support the Conservative policy on right to buy for housing association tenants? In the rural part of my constituency, that will take out yet another swathe—the remaining swathe—of affordable housing for rent. The environment in the area is the most protected in England and Wales, so building more housing is not an option.

Mr. Curry: shall come to the right to buy in a moment, and the hon. Gentleman will no doubt wish to pay attention to what is said about it.

Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con): Does my right hon. Friend accept that the Welsh have had the common sense to reject the approach that will be imposed on English local authorities, which involves all the complications that he has just listed?

Mr. Curry: Given my new responsibilities, I am much more sensitive to the sense and intelligence of the devolved Administrations than in the past. I am delighted that the Welsh have set such a sensible example, as the Scots so often do.

The Deputy Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is dealing with a serious point. The Housing, Planning and Local Government Sub-Committee encouraged us to include in the Bill enabling powers to deal with changes made in respect of section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. He can be assured that we will be able to answer in the proposals on guidance and regulations some of the questions that he is posing. None the less, it was right not to miss the legislative slot in making the changes, on which everyone agrees.

Mr. Curry: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Provided that we have a proper opportunity to discuss the very serious implications that are involved, I shall be content to proceed in that way.

We also welcome the fire services Bill. I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman said about the result of the ballot. I am pleased about that result and the fact that some of the militants may have been thwarted on this occasion. Everybody wants firefighters to get back to work, including them. We also agree that it is important to refocus the service on prevention. We notice that some powers are being devolved, although they are often controversial locally, while the national framework of strategic controls stays with him.
The Opposition are concerned about what is happening offstage with regard to the fire services Bill. If it is intended to save lives, it is difficult to know why a target of achieving a 20 per cent. reduction in accidental fire deaths in homes by March 2004 has now been pushed forward to 2010. New Zealand managed to halve the number of such deaths within four years. The target of cutting the incidence of deliberately started fires by 30 per cent. by 2009 has now been cut to 10 per cent. by 2010. While a Bill is being introduced to deliver more effectively on prevention, the targets on prevention appear to be becoming much more lax, and I find it difficult to square those two issues.

I agree with a great deal of what the Deputy Prime Minister said about housing. Some extremely important issues are involved. The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) mentioned the transfer programme, which is one of those issues, where it is still in place, following the setback in Birmingham and some large authorities' withdrawal from it. Will the transfer of 200,000 houses a year that the Government anticipated in their Green Paper on housing still be realised? How will they establish a divide between the classical transfer and arm's-length companies? What are the implications for each of those approaches, according to how the split happens? Does the arrangement mean that the Government will meet the decent homes target? A great deal depends on the continuing transfer movement, as the private sector money will not be delivered without it.

I agree that we must address the problems of housing failure not only in the north, but in the midlands and other areas; indeed, there are serious social problems in parts of the south. That means that housing must be stitched into a much wider regeneration programme. All the indications suggest that the best form of regeneration is a job.

Unless the Office for National Statistics has managed to misplace large numbers of people, we appear to face a continuing drain out of the cities into the suburbs and beyond. The statistics indicate that the only big northern city that is resistant to that is Leeds—the others are experiencing, to a lesser or greater extent, a continuing move outside. Until we can anchor the jobs in those inner cities, we face a continuing social problem of enormous proportions.

The Deputy Prime Minister has put a great deal of emphasis on his communities plan. The needs are undeniable, as is the imperative of sustainability. However, sustainability is not a quasi-religious notion that descends mystically on a community: it is, especially where attempts are being made to build new communities, a very practical physical quality that depends not only on good design and good behaviour, but crucially, on the delivery, as the settlement grows, of basic services such as hospitals, schools, waste disposal, water, transport, policing and the maintenance of a safe environment, so that they become knitted into the fabric of that community. Some dangers are involved, however.

Mr. Bellingham: Will my right hon. Friend reflect again on affordable housing? In my constituency, there are several schemes that are subject to section 106 agreements, and parish councils tell me that they would like to have more say in their allocation to ensure that they are genuinely for local people.

Mr. Curry: When large volumes of new housing and population are introduced into areas, the danger is that the people who lived there in the first place might feel disempowered because they see an expansion that will necessarily mean the total transformation of their environment. As far as they are concerned, what might seem to be an opportunity for somebody else appears to be the loss of the very qualities that made them want to live there.

There is also the danger that the whole programme will add to the overheating as people continue to spill out of London into the south-east, which continues to feel the pressures of immigration, as well as of people moving out of the cities: those twin factors are at work throughout the region. Of course, that brings a new demand for housing, along with sociological issues such as the multiplication of households that has already been experienced. The Cambridge-Stansted corridor is already earmarked as one of the four major areas for housing development. If the Secretary of State for Transport goes on to identify Stansted as the airport that is to take one or more new runways, that will create a serious potential for overheating in the area, reproducing in the future the problems that it has faced in the past.

As far as the Bill is concerned, I am not sure whose pet obsession sellers' packs are.

The Deputy Prime Minister: They are supported by the Consumers Association.

Mr. Curry: I note that and will make no comment upon it. I have listened to the Consumers Association's comments on a number of issues, none of which I intend to mention now.

Sellers' packs are like the mother-in-law—they keep turning up and one hopes that they will not stay for too long before they go away again. My advice to the Government is, quite simply, "Forget it."

Mr. Colin Challen (Morley and Rothwell) (Lab): Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that sellers' packs would be a great boon to first-time buyers?

Mr. Curry: I disagree—it is as simple as that.

Bob Spink: While my right hon. Friend is on the subject of consumers, is he aware that it has been estimated that this Government policy would cost consumers some £322 million a year, as well as creating additional regulations and the possibility of their being able to break yet another law?

Mr. Curry: Not only have sellers' packs been inadequately tested and shown no great outcome when they are tested, but they will be bureaucratic because an army of staff must deliver the surveys and provide training. Moreover, the £700 or £800 may not be enough even when added to the perverse effects of stamp duty in leafy suburbs. In inner city areas and areas under stress, there could be a genuine burden. Some hon. Gentlemen have argued that areas of low-cost housing should be exempt. Indeed, I recall the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) saying months ago that perhaps sellers' packs should not have to apply to the bottom tier of housing. However, that would severely affect some housing by stigmatising it as almost unsaleable.

Mr. Pike: I argued that, but the concept of the housing pathfinder renewal project has been introduced since then. I am waiting to see exactly what that will deliver. Everything is relative, but it would be pointless not to touch the market as it exists now. I hope that it will change.

Mr. Curry: The hon. Gentleman substantiates my point. Although pathfinder schemes are welcome, they are not universal and large areas are not covered by them.

Mr. Betts: The right hon. Gentleman simply dismisses sellers' packs, but is he content with the current position whereby the majority of people buy their home with nothing more than a building society survey? They do not get a proper survey of their property. Sellers' packs would introduce that, and I hope that he welcomes that important aspect.

Mr. Curry: The question arises of whether people should take proper care when purchasing homes. Should it be the Government's responsibility to provide for that or should people have the sense to do it themselves? It is not the Government's job to step in every time an individual makes an imprudent decision. The damage that that will cause to many people outweighs the benefits to a limited number of people. Many questions remain about how long sellers' packs will be valid and whether they will thwart the efficiency gains of modern technology.

I fear that we are considering a tax on mobility; not facilitation of the market but an impediment to its functioning.

The Deputy Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman makes some serious points that have been discussed inside and outside the House. We have now accepted that we can roll out the scheme in some areas to see how it works. Does he support that?

Mr. Curry: If the Government carry through their programme and the schemes become law, it makes sense to trial them effectively. So far, only the little, inconclusive trial in Bristol has taken place. It would make sense to trial it more effectively, if the Government get their way.

Mr. Edward Davey: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. The Government wish to make the sellers' packs compulsory. I believe that hon. Members of all parties would be happy if a standard were set for the home information packs and people could choose to have them, but making it illegal to market one's home before paying £600 to £1,000 to get the pack is absurd.

Mr. Curry: The hon. Gentleman makes an effective point.

Mr. Brian Jenkins (Tamworth) (Lab): I have listened to the right hon. Gentleman with great interest, as always. However, he misses a crucial point. What would he say to a constituent of mine who tried to purchase a house two years ago? He paid for three surveys on three houses because the first two attempts to buy fell through. The owner of the first property was merely testing the market and my constituent's second attempt failed because he was gazzumped. How can we simply say to him, "I'm sorry you lost your money but we haven't got a better way of doing business in this country"?

Mr. Curry: But how does the hon. Gentleman respond to people who consider selling their homes but may be deterred by the cost of providing the sellers' packs, and do not know how long they will last and how often they must be reproduced? One cannot build good law on isolated cases of things going wrong. That is not a practical proposition for legislation.

Mr. Betts: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way again. I do not know whether he read the Select Committee report on the subject. The Bristol experiment included a scheme to pay the costs at the point of sale, not up front. The Select Committee had all the evidence, which shows that that scheme could be rolled out nationally.

Mr. Curry: I have read the Select Committee report, which states that the scheme is half baked, not thoroughly worked out and not properly tested. If the hon. Gentleman believes that the Select Committee endorsed the scheme, he has not read the report.

The Deputy Prime Minister mentioned developers' social housing grant. He answered one important question about whether there would be a level playing field for private developers and housing associations on the standard of the homes. It is important that housing associations are regulated by the Housing Corporation, the Audit Commission and the Charity Commission. That is an expensive business. It is important that the regulatory framework for the private sector should ensure that competition is effective between them, and it should be possible to play any benefits that the private sector gets back into the housing association sector.

It is quite clear that the Treasury thinks that housing associations have become rather lazy on the fat of the land and that there is an efficiency gain of about 15 per cent. to be achieved by bringing in the private sector, although it remains to be seen whether that is the case. However, it is important that it should have the same terms in order to compete.

The right to buy is a crucial part of the proposals. The Housing Corporation study, "A Home of My Own", has been praised by the Deputy Prime Minister, and I am happy to praise it as well. It is a sensible, efficient document, which contains some clear and good recommendations. It shows clearly that right to buy is the most accessible, affordable and efficient route to home ownership for social housing tenants. It is simple, it works and it makes a big contribution to creating mixed communities, whose importance has been demonstrated by the Rowntree Foundation. Incidentally, right to buy has also brought about what has been virtually a social revolution in the United Kingdom.

I do not dispute that circumstances differ across the country. The Heriot-Watt study, which the Deputy Prime Minister commissioned to consider the question of abuse, said that most users of companies for right to buy do so either because they cannot get a conventional mortgage, so they have to go for what I think is called in the trade a sub-prime offer, or because they wish to purchase property that the conventional market finds unattractive—high-rise buildings, for example.

I accept that there has been abuse—I do not pretend that there has not been any—but the Deputy Prime Minister has already tightened the rules significantly to the point where it may even be that sales are being strangled completely in London. We do not know whether that is a fact, whether a lot of sales took place before the cut-off point, which is what is being reflected in the low level now, or whether the market will resume. However, there is at least a danger that there is a strangulation in those schemes. Perhaps the discounts are now too small to bridge the affordability gap.

I want the Deputy Prime Minister to give the clear assurance that he is seeking solely to deal with abuse, not to deliver under the cover of tackling it a death blow to a scheme that still marks the fulfilment of aspiration for about 50,000 people a year. I commend the Housing Corporation study to the House. Some ideas are interesting and the unification of the schemes to promote affordable housing across the social sector, the rationalisation of the range of schemes and the means of getting value for money in social and cash terms are all important conclusions. The policies that have eased people into affordable housing may need to move forward by a generation as well.

On houses in multiple occupation, I accept the need to tackle problems of poor standards, bad landlords and nasty tenants. The difficulty I have is that what is proposed is potentially very confusing. The Deputy Prime Minister outlined three schemes: the mandatory national licensing scheme, which addresses the areas of highest risk; discretionary licensing in problem areas; and selective licensing to deal with bad landlords and antisocial tenants in areas of low demand or serious social dislocation.

The difficulty I see is the danger of a heterogeneous and variably enforced regime in different parts of the country, and perhaps an exodus from the small landlord sector. We know that the private rented sector is the smallest in the western world, yet it is a crucial element of housing provision in the UK. We know equally that where there have been new standards in care homes, we have seen an exodus of people from that sector as they were unwilling or unable to meet those new standards. There is a serious risk there.

We must also consider whether there might be some perverse deterrence risk—will the provision catch people it was not intended to catch? For example, some parents buy property in university towns when a child is going to university. They rent the spare rooms to colleagues of their children. Will they be caught? [Interruption.] The Minister for Housing and Planning expresses some surprise, but that habit is much more widespread than perhaps he recognises.

Mr. Best: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the practice to which he refers leaves great numbers of houses not registered in such usage, which can be seriously detrimental to the surrounding community? I refer to the parent who might have bought for a student.

Mr. Curry: I am tempted to say that some parents can obviously afford property that is rather better than that which can be afforded by other parents. I do not wish to mention Bristol too much in this context.

My point to the Deputy Prime Minister is that the Bill should not have an unintentional effect and deter a practice that is providing accommodation. That is the crucial thing here.

The Deputy Prime Minister: I find myself in great agreement with the right hon. Gentleman. We would not want to discourage the private rented market, as that is one of the difficult areas in our housing provision. The Bill allows greater flexibility because the problems in the south are different from those of the north and because there are areas of low demand and high demand. We hope to deal with the right hon. Gentleman's points in the advice given about the operation of the schemes.

Mr. Curry: One huge question is presented by the right hon. Gentleman's proposals and by the legislative programme, and that concerns the capacity of local authorities to deliver. Some 16 Bills in the Queen's Speech have implications for local authorities. Some—the Housing Bill for example—have enormous implications where local authorities will be in the front line. The Bill on school transport is smaller, but nonetheless has implications. The planning Bill has enormous implications for local authorities. In this complex, modern world—in which a lot depends on forecasting technologies—we are discovering that the capacity of public bodies to deliver is under-stressed.

Until recently, I was the chairman of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which dealt with complex environmental legislation. There was a problem of capacity in terms of translating that into national law and administering it, especially when complex statistical or econometric calculations were required to create quasi-market mechanisms. Local authorities will be under immense pressure to deliver the mechanisms from the legislative programme. That is on top of the already severe demands from the army of gendarmes mobilised by the Government for inspection. Local authorities need resources, skills and capacity.

Local authorities will be under severe financial pressure this year. The Minister for Housing and Planning has been having fun, telling everyone that capping will be back for local authorities. Yet many will find that increasing council tax by two or three times the equivalent rise in the rate of inflation is inescapable. We know that district councils and those services closest to the citizen will be under pressure because of the general 2.2 per cent. increase.
Some local authorities might increase council taxes more than might be necessary. No one has ever denied that a local authority, having some limited freedom, occasionally might try "swinging the lead", but, for many, there is no choice. Bills will rise and resentment will rise with them, at a time of continually mounting demands on local authorities.

The Government talk about lots of local authority freedoms, but they are imposing a large number of responsibilities on local authorities. Authorities will not wish to repudiate those matters and will be happy to undertake them, provided they get the means to do so. It is for the Government to make sure that they get the means.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab): The right hon. Gentleman skipped rapidly over the issue of school transport. Are we to assume that he is in favour of local authorities extending their provision for school transport, or not?

Mr. Curry: I was illustrating the degree to which the Queen's Speech was imposing new obligations upon local authorities. I am sure that the environmental implications of those measures on school transport will become clear during the winding-up speeches.

The Deputy Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman has been generous in giving way. The financial situation for local authorities during the period in which I have been responsible can be compared with a similar period—1992–97—when he was the Minister responsible. Does he accept that the financial resources given to local authorities were cut by 7 per cent. in real terms during his period and that they have increased by 29 per cent. in real terms under this Administration?

Mr. Curry: First, the obligations on local authorities are infinitely greater now than they were then. Secondly, alongside his table showing the grant increase, the right hon. Gentleman should set another table showing the council tax increases equivalent to those earlier years. He will find that, under the last Conservative Government, the council tax was under nothing like the strain that it is under now as a result of the massive increase in public expenditure. For every increase in spending that the Government require but do not meet, local authorities must increase council tax by 4 per cent. to raise 1 per cent. of the deficit in funding.

That has been the heart of the problem for the past few years. It is the Government's demands that have put local authorities under such pressure, and which have caused local taxpayers to feel such a strong sense of resentment.

This Queen's Speech is a bit of a rag-bag. It does contain some sensible measures that we welcome, and where we do welcome them, I shall not hesitate to say so. Where the detail requires examination in order to find out how a particular Bill will work in practice, we will focus on such scrutiny. There are, however, some measures that we oppose, not because of any ideological concern, but simply because they are daft, will not work and are unnecessary. There are other measures that weoppose because they are ill-conceived and will do nothing but damage. I look forward to having that debate with the Government.

This Government are losing their way and the Prime Minister is losing his grip. The Deputy Prime Minister even referred to the Administration as being his. I knew that there was one other contender for power; I did not realise that there were two.

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David Curry MP | House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA | tel: 020 7219 6202