Speeches by McMahon.

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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 …”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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 …”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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.”

“That is not to say that we are not supporting councils. The relationship that we have developed is one of collaboration, and we are constantly reviewing our approach to support and intervention. There are councils that will have best value notices issued, because we do have concerns about governance and finances in som…”

“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…”

“Well, to a point, how long is a piece of string? There are lots of moving parts to the system. I will not repeat what I have said already about the number of moving parts, but the hope and expectation is that, by the end of this Parliament—so at the end of the multi-year settlement—the councils will be on a sustainable…”

“That will always be the case until we address the foundational problems in local government finance.”

“Our view is that the funding settlement of more than £69 billion is enough as a bridging settlement, if you like, to take us to the multi-year settlement. The challenge that we all have is to make sure that by the end of the multi-year settlement, given how much churn is in the system—because we have the needs and reso…”