This debate takes place when the most extreme Government Britain has ever had is setting out destroying the state provision of services in England. [Interruption.] I want, initially, to address two specific points in the resolution.
Point 2 regrets the Welsh Government’s persistent refusal to provide support to local authorities in preventing rises in council tax. The Welsh block grant, I would say, is the Welsh block grant, but, as that seemed to confuse some of the researchers on the Conservative benches, I’ll try and help them. The Welsh block grant is a fixed sum. If the Welsh Government reduces the rate support grant—and they made up the grant, they made it up by a grant supporting council tax—local authorities would have exactly the same money coming in, just packaged differently, and then spun as a saving, which would be illusory.
Point 3 notes the average band D council tax for Wales for 2015-16 is £1,328, and that households are £546 worse off over the course of the fourth Assembly due to the Welsh Government’s refusal to implement a council tax freeze. The fact that the average band D council tax is higher in England is, of course, ignored. The fact that a large number of Conservative councils in England have not implemented the council tax freeze is also, of course, ignored. The logic of this argument is that there is a desire to reduce local government expenditure by £546 per council tax payer per council.
I now intend to summarise my interpretation of the Conservative party’s policies.
Can I finish my summary, and I will then? You might want to intervene twice. A freeze on council tax, cut the rate support grant in order to support hospital services, directly fund schools and reduce overall education expenditure by ending the central local authority expenditure, and for councils to concentrate on their statutory functions and reduce or end discretionary services. Nick.
Well, actually, I’m glad Labour’s won Surrey, we’re doing really well, but I think the key point, of course, is that local authorities get exactly the same amount of money; it’s just how it’s paid out. Every local authority in Wales could freeze council tax; they just have to cut services. What does this position that I’ve just said about the Conservatives mean in practice? If education central services were removed, the most obvious change would be the end of free school transport. This would need legislation. It would be taking us back to before the 1944 Butler Act. This would disproportionately affect rural areas, Welsh-medium education and denominational schools. The second major area removed would be education consortia, and, whilst removing them may be popular, it would signal the end to all support to schools from outside.
End discretionary services—that’s an easy one, isn’t it? You’re only doing statutory services: that would mean closing all parks, closing all community centres, closing all leisure centres, closing all sports facilities, closing all public toilets, ending bus subsidies—and that’s obviously a number of bus routes—ending economic development by local authorities, ending support for tourism by local authorities and substantially reducing library provision. What the Conservatives appear incapable of understanding is that housing, social services for the elderly, primary care and secondary care are all inter-related. To quote that well-known left-leaning news group, Sky:
‘Bed blocking in NHS hospitals has reached its highest level…amid warnings that a lack of social care is bringing the health service “to its knees”. Every day, doctors and nurses in England are unable to discharge more than 1,000 patients who no longer need treatment because there is no care available for them at home or in the community…Analysis of the latest health statistics by Sky News shows that on one day in September’
2014, just under 5,000
‘patients were unable to be transferred either to other parts of the NHS or into the care of local authorities…That month, 138,068 days of care were lost because of “delayed transfers of care”. At £250 a day for a hospital bed’
that’s £34 million a month looking after patients who no longer need to be there.
More than a quarter of the delays were attributed to a lack of social care funding and that is before the latest set of cuts to local authority expenditure. Poor housing, unavailable sport and exercise opportunities, inadequate primary care and unavailable social care will lead, without any doubt whatsoever, to serious increasing demand and delays in hospital care. The continued attack on local government by the Conservatives is not only unfair and unwarranted, but, if implemented, would have a catastrophic effect on hospital services and the whole of society.
Can I just finish by paying tribute to councillors of all political parties? When I first got elected, I served on the county council with Nigel Evans. I know Lindsay Whittle served as a councillor for 40 years. These people give their time and work incredibly hard for very modest amounts of money. I think we all ought to pay tribute to the work that they do for their community because they care.
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