Speeches by McMahon.

“Some of the work is taking place now. At a more localised level, we are working with the Cabinet Office on the test, learn and grow pilots, which are about understanding where placed-based, hyper-local early intervention in public sector reform partnerships can deliver better outcomes at a reduced cost. That work is on…”

“There is a transition that is pretty explicit in the White Paper, which is about moving to strategic authorities that are basically the arm of growth, coupled with a reasserted local government that is the arm of public service reform and early intervention. If you think of growth and reform as two sides of the same co…”

“For all the baseline datasets, whether in our Department, the Department for Education or the Department of Health and Social Care, we want to use the most up-to-date, reliable and robust data possible. That is the intention; obviously, we will come forward with the needs and resource assessment in the round. To reassu…”

“By and large, on business rate retention, which is coupled with the revaluation in the growth sense, the revaluation needs to happen and was always intended to happen. It is just that the previous Government decided that it would not happen. Whatever the tax system, it should be based on the most up-to-date, reliable i…”

“The introduction of the two new multipliers is actually quite a significant change. To now have the lower multiplier for retail, hospitality and leisure will mean a cash saving for many of the foundational businesses that are important for our communities. The other thing it does is take away the cap on national multip…”

“It is not a piece of work that we are currently looking at. The English devolution White Paper is trying to do two things on devolution: to widen devolution to make sure that every part of England has a route to further devolution, and to deepen devolution to make sure that areas with existing mayors or combined author…”

“With all indices of multiple deprivation, I suppose the only direct instruction politically is that we need to go down to the smallest possible unit to make sure that we pick up deprivation wherever it exists in the country. We do not want to have such a high level of assessment of deprivation that we pick up big clust…”

“On the pro-growth element, there is the quantum—how much are businesses being asked to pay in business rates—as well as a rebalancing of the business rates system to ensure that we better account for the online and on-street spheres. When we speak to our constituents about the economy, most people think about the every…”

“In a way, not meeting it is not an option. If we don’t have a clear eye on what the new unitaries will be in a third of England, without knowing what the architecture of those councils is going to be, there is no way that we can have a local government finance settlement and a multi-year settlement that balances at the…”

“I will let Nico talk about how we arrived at the distribution of NICs if that is helpful to the Committee. In terms of the overall allocation, we do take—you would expect us to say this—the allocation for local government in the round. On that basis, there has been £5 billion of new money into the system. Most councils…”

“Quite a lot in that question pre-empts our position. First, we have not yet reached agreement with individual local authorities in the round, as in all those going through reorganisation in the counties where some of the councils might have quite excessive levels of debt. Nor have we agreed a final position with the Tr…”

“I am Jim McMahon, the Minister of State covering local government and English devolution.”

“I was on the phone to the leader of Birmingham this morning. We are in regular contact about the situation there. First of all, I must say that we really appreciate the efforts of frontline workers to clear over 30,000 tonnes of accumulated waste from the streets of Birmingham. A public health crisis was developing in …”

“No, I take the LGA’s figures at face value. My point is that, coupled with the additional payment of over £500 million for NIC costs and the overall allocation of £5 billion, in the round there is enough money in the system to absorb that direct cost. I can ask Nico to talk about how we arrived at the calculation that …”

“From a sector point of view, we do not assess at the moment that there are structural vulnerabilities in the sector, but there will be historic liabilities that some councils have built up where, historically, men have been paid more for equivalent roles compared to female workers. Most councils dealt with that issue q…”

“The multi-year settlement, in a way, is only one component part of a bigger project to rebuild the system and shore up the foundations. What a multi-year settlement does is give confidence and the ability to plan ahead. Where councils need to think about their new operating model, it gives time to work through the tran…”

“That is down to the relationship between the local authorities and their auditors. It is also about rebuilding capacity in the audit market more generally so that those are mature and developed relationships. There will be examples almost certainly in the system where councils could take action that they have not taken…”

“The backlog is only a rear-view mirror, isn’t it? It only tells you what has happened. It does not tell you what is going to happen. EFS is about putting councils on a surer financial footing for the year ahead.”

“Councils have an organisational challenge in how they balance the competing interests, because they will want to deliver good neighbourhood services for their residents coupled with the statutory services that they have to maintain. I will be honest and say that there is a political challenge here as well. As you right…”

“Well, what does good look like? The vast majority of councils, in the vast majority of cases, are able to stand on their own two feet and they are sustainable in their own right. The number of councils that come to us for exceptional support are absolutely exceptional and around the edges. It is a result of not the und…”