Neil Turner: Wigan has 19 Sure Start centres. Beech Hill primary school is following Westfield, Woodfield and Canon Sharples schools in being rebuilt, and all our secondary schools are being rebuilt through the Building Schools for the Future programme. Can my right hon. Friend guarantee that any Government led by him will continue to invest in our children, the citizens of my constituency and our country?
Neil Turner: What assessment he has made of the implications for his Department's policies of the outcomes of the London G20 summit.
Neil Turner: Will the Minister expand on that, and tell us whether any countries had been planning for that, and if they were, whether they thought that that was fiscally responsible and their patriotic duty?
Neil Turner: I look at the figures for Mole Valley and I see that it will receive 30 per cent. more than the formula funding says that it should get in 2008-09, dropping to 21 per cent. more next year. How can the hon. Gentleman justify any increase above the floor when the council already receives so much more than it is entitled to? Moreover, half of the super-output areas in Mole Valley are in the top...
Neil Turner: I welcome the settlement. It is an extremely good settlement for local government and builds on more than 10 years of above-inflation grants to local government. It is particularly welcome because the circumstances in which it was first mooted are very different from the present circumstances. In the 1980s and 1990s, when the Conservative Government's home-grown recessions were putting...
Neil Turner: My hon. Friend replicates my account of my own experience, which is shared by many people who were councillors in Labour-controlled authorities, in particular. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey), who is no longer in her place, the Conservative Government used to gerrymander the system of grants to suit their own local authorities. The...
Neil Turner: The proposal to return business rates to local government has a lot of merit, but it should not be considered in isolation. If we are to look at how local government is financed, we must do so in the round, rather than through a single issue, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman understands and agrees. However, I take on board his point about the return of the business rate to local government....
Neil Turner: The Government have not abandoned that process. Clearly, we have a problem with the comprehensive spending review, and we all know that, but it would be nonsensical to undertake a comprehensive spending review immediately before an election that could lead to a change in Government, as it would have been in an economic downturn, which could have been a depression if we had followed the...
Neil Turner: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Perish the thought that I would ever do anything to earn your wrath and ire. I shall provide a couple of examples of what the three-year funding certainty has given us. First, on housing, we have 26,000 council houses in Wigan, and every single one has been brought up to the decent homes standard. We have been able to do so not only in the public sector, but in the...
Neil Turner: That is not my understanding of what the hon. Member for Richmond Park said-I will read Hansard. I believe that the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne agrees with my point that we need to move more quickly towards the formula funding, so that each local authority gets the grant that it is entitled to under that formula. I welcome that agreement, as it is very important that that happens...
Neil Turner: I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. In the new year I shall be taking up a position as a Parliamentary Private Secretary within the Department, so this is my last opportunity to speak. I thank the Chairman for her good offices and all the guidance that she has given to me while I have served on the Committee, and I particularly thank the staff, who have done a...
Neil Turner: And Yorkshire and the north-east.
Neil Turner: May I remind the Minister that in 2013 we will have the rugby league world cup as well?
Neil Turner: It is pleasure to be under your tutelage this afternoon, Mr. Hancock. It is also a pleasure to talk about the Davies report and the rugby league challenge cup. Those of us in the rugby league community see the cup as extremely iconic, not only for rugby league, but for sport in general. It is important that we give the Minister and his team in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport some...
Neil Turner: I am very grateful for that intervention. My hon. Friend has probably pinched about three seconds of my speech, but that is neither here nor there because I fully agree with him. The point that he makes is very important. In rugby league, most of the players come from quite deprived backgrounds. Many of them do not have the family discipline that perhaps exists in other families, but going...
Neil Turner: There is widespread agreement that the housing revenue account system is not fit for purpose, so I give the review that is under way a warm welcome. The Treasury has proposed taking an extra £7 billion dowry from councils, but does my right hon. Friend agree that that would prevent them from implementing the Decent Homes standard, and that it could be seen as a tax on council house tenants?
Neil Turner: May I tell the Housing Minister how warmly welcomed his statement was last week on the housing subsidy account? May I also urge him to ensure that any changes he makes will enable excellent four-star councils such as Wigan to build on the 80 council houses it will be placing in the Scholes area of Wigan, so that there are more of them in future?
Neil Turner: This Labour Government have made a lot of progress in tackling disadvantaged communities, such as Pemberton, Scholes and Beech Hill in my constituency, through the neighbourhood renewal fund. However, local authorities and primary care trusts are hampered from building on that success because they do not get the money that the Government formula tells them they are entitled to. Will my right...
Neil Turner: If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.
Neil Turner: I understand that the ring-fencing of the Supporting People programme will be abolished shortly—which I welcome—and the money will be included in the base funding for local authorities. I urge my right hon. Friend to take this opportunity to ensure that that money goes to local authorities on the basis of measured need, rather than historical spending patterns.