Westminster City Council Revenue Support Grant (Hansard, 6 December 1995)

The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Earl Ferrers)
My Lords, the revenue support grant is calculated on the basis of the standard spending assessment of local authorities.

§ Lord Jenkins of Putney
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply to this Question, which to my surprise appears in my name and in this form. I saw it for the first time when I sat down in the Chamber this afternoon!
The Minister will be aware that there has been a considerable amount of criticism and public examination of the recent activities of Westminster City Council. Will he tell the House what is the present position in regard to that examination?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, it is as much of a surprise to me that the Question was not tabled by the noble Lord himself as it is to him. I can only wonder who tabled it.
The simple answer is that all SSAs are calculated in the same way throughout the country. There is a considerable amount of discussion with the local authorities associations each year on what makes up the SSAs. That has continued, and will continue. Indeed a number of the changes being made this year are due to the initiatives of the local authorities associations.

§ Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, is the Minister aware—I am sure he is—that Westminster City Council, according to its own figures, has a budget in 1995–96 below the standard spending assessment set by the Government for grant distribution purposes? According to the council, were it to budget up to the SSA, the council tax, instead of being £275, would be £550. On what basis, and why, do the Government consider that Westminster City Council should spend more than does the council itself?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, the noble Lord is quite surprising in some respects. The whole purpose of local authorities is that they manage their affairs as effectively and efficiently as possible. The fact that Westminster City Council does that better than almost any other 969 council is a great credit to it—particularly taking into account the fact that over the years it has received lower figures for SSA than have, on average, the other inner London authorities.

§ Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, I am not quite sure that the noble Earl understands the calculation of the standard spending assessment. It is the Government's view on what local councils should spend per head. If the noble Earl can get that into his head, perhaps he will answer my question as to why the Government think Westminster should spend more than the council itself believes it should.

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, I find that question, even by the noble Lord's standards, peculiarly difficult to comprehend. The standard spending assessment is made up of a number of standard spending assessments for education, social services, highways maintenance and so forth. That is the basis of calculation for standard spending assessment. On top of that, it is up to the local authority to run its business as well as possible. If it runs its business efficiently by not setting a higher council tax, that is a good thing. It is funny—is it not?—that the council in question is Conservative-run.

§ Lord Marsh
My Lords, I declare an interest as a Westminster taxpayer. Is the Minister aware that, whatever the basis of calculation, most of the taxpayers there approve of it?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Marsh. He is absolutely right. I was also quite impressed to find that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, has taken the precaution of living in Wandsworth, which also happens to have a Conservative-controlled council with one of the lowest rates of council tax.

§ Lord Boyd-Carpenter
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that Westminster City Council is one of the best city councils in the country and has the admiration not only of those who live in it but also of those who, like myself, live near it?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend. He makes a perfectly valid point. I declare an interest: I also live in the environs of Westminster City Council. It conducts itself very effectively, very efficiently and very well.

Lord Bruce of Donington
My Lords, while conceding to the noble Earl the wisdom of Westminster City Council, which he admires so much, in disposing of its cemeteries at such small cost and without in any way querying his right to put the affairs of local authorities under a microscope as in the case of Lambeth, is it not high time, in view of the fact that everybody knows what is happening in Westminster, that a searchlight is put on Westminster City Council rather than its affairs being swept under the carpet?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, if everyone knows what is happening in Westminster City Council, I cannot see 970 that there is much point in putting a searchlight on it. The matter of the cemeteries is one for Westminster City Council and its electorate.

§ Lord Harris of Greenwich
My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that some of us are a little puzzled by the warm tribute that he paid to Westminster City Council, in view of the allegations that it coldly and deliberately moved families into public housing knowing that that housing was riddled with asbestos, therefore causing great danger to the health of the families concerned?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, that is a matter which is being considered. If the noble Lord were to modify all his views by the fact that certain scandals or so-called scandals are reported in the newspapers, it would be very difficult ever to come to a reasonable judgment. If there is a scandal or a matter for disapproval it will be investigated.

§ Lord Dubs
My Lords, perhaps I should declare an interest as both a Westminster ratepayer and a former Westminster City councillor in the days before Shirley Porter was made its leader. Will the Minister confirm that, over the years since the poll tax was introduced, both Westminster City Council and Wandsworth City Council, which he just mentioned, have had a disproportionately large share of central government funding, to the point where—as the Mayor of Leeds said some years ago—if other local authorities had had such central government support, they could have declared a dividend rather than charging poll tax or council tax?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on having been a member of the Westminster City Council. It was a pity that it was before Dame Shirley Porter. Perhaps it did not do quite so well then.
The noble Lord shakes his head. The fact is that Westminster City Council has done very well. It has a smaller proportion of the increases that have been available to other inner London boroughs. Some noble Lords may find it hard to believe, but Westminster City ' Council is regarded certainly as one of the six most deprived councils in the United Kingdom. Indeed, one report from the South Bank University ranks it as the fourth most deprived council. That is the reason why it is necessary to provide funds.

§ Lord Harmar-Nicholls
My Lords, despite all the supplementary questions which seem to have moved in an opposite direction, do I understand my noble friend's Answer to the Question on the Order Paper to be that the revenue support grant of Westminster City Council is calculated in exactly the same way as for all the other London borough councils?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, my noble friend, with his usual perspicacity, has got the answer precisely correct.

§ Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, following the question from the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, is the Minister aware that Westminster City Council considers itself vulnerable to the criticism that it receives double compensation for the costs arising from the influx of commuters, tourism and visitors to the city? Is he also aware that that form of double compensation, 971 according to a document that I have in my hand, is of concern to some councillors in Westminster, in that, if there is a new government in central Westminster (if I may so put it), that double compensation might be removed? Furthermore, I am glad that the Minister is satisfied with the performance of Westminster City Council but does he recognise that Westminster City Council receives 91 per cent. of its budget requirement from central government compared with the national average of 84 per cent?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, the noble Lord asked a number of questions. He said that Westminster City Council considers that it is vulnerable because, as he put it, it is double counted. The fact is that visitors and commuters mean that a local authority faces higher costs than would otherwise be the case. The SSA (standard spending assessment) reflects those higher costs. The London boroughs of Camden, Islington, Southwark and Tower Hamlets, as well as the local authorities in major cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, all do well out of the fact that commuters are taken into account.
I understood the noble Lord to say that Westminster City Council has more money than other local authorities. The fact is that among the inner London authorities Tower Hamlets receives a rate support grant of £1,369; Hackney receives £1,207; and Islington receives £1,038. Westminster comes far below at £999. So it has a smaller proportion than any of the others.
The noble Lord speculates in saying that, if there were to be a change of central government, the double compensation would be removed. I can only tell him that he had better watch out. The grant is calculated in order to ensure that the councils have the correct backing for their needs. If the Labour Party were to say, "When we come in, we shall remove money from the local authorities", it would be a matter of great interest to the local authorities—perhaps I may ask the noble Lord to sit in his place for just a short while longer—but the noble Lord need not worry too much, because he will not be there.

§ Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, I feel that I listen enough to the noble Earl. The double compensation relates not just to the SSA but also to the parking income which Westminster Council cashes in. That is where the double compensation comes in. I hope that the noble Earl has been able to grasp that. If he has not, perhaps he will make an effort to do so and write to me about the double compensation.

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, I do my best to grasp the noble Lord's points. Sometimes they are a little easier than at other times. If I have failed on this occasion, I shall certainly write to him. It will be a most charming letter in which he will no doubt find that I say that I am absolutely right.

§ Lord Jenkins of Putney
My Lords, will the Minister admit that, despite the apparently obscure nature of the Question, we have succeeded in establishing that there is a problem in Westminster City Council, that it has been going on for some time and that it requires further examination? If the Question has only done that, it has 972 done something. Will he accept that this is a matter which must not be allowed to rest and only the fact that we are approaching the 30-minute limit prevents me from continuing at the present time?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, the noble Lord always has an ingenious method of coming to a conclusion. I0 thought that the one conclusion which we had reached was that Westminster City Council is treated exactly the same as everyone else and there is nothing to worry about.