Speeches by Cocking.

“Businesses in my constituency are putting off investing and employing local people because of the jobs tax and the Government’s proposed new regulation. I hope that when the Minister winds up, he will say what the Government will do to create the next generation of entrepreneurs. We could turbocharge the education syst…”

“The hon. Gentleman’s party is actually cutting the capital budget for transport. I have made this point time and again, but the Government could take on the utility companies that endlessly dig up the roads so that my constituents and many others across the country have to sit in traffic. That costs the taxpayer and th…”

“Will, you just said that the bigger you are, the more efficient you are. Birmingham is the biggest one in the country. That has to be one of the most inefficient councils that we have. They cannot collect the rubbish. They have had loads of issues. They have nearly gone bankrupt a couple of times. I would not call that…”

“I am concerned that you may be putting too much of a focus on how much money is going to be saved by doing all of this. Pre-2009, there were probably billions to save, but lots of councils now—district councils, county councils, unitary councils and all the rest of it—have loads of joined-up services. Some have shared …”

“I draw the Committee’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a local councillor. The Minister proposes to increase fees, but from my understanding they will not go to full cost recovery. Will he set out why they are taking a leapfrog approach and not going to full cost recovery, if th…”

“What is going to happen to all of the other unitaries that currently exist? Your own council, Oldham, is 242,000. What is going to happen to them? Are you saying that that is a bad council, that it is not efficient and that it needs to be abolished or merged with something else to get it to 500,000 people?”

“Why are you looking at size, then, in terms of population? It makes no sense. If you want local councils to be efficient, you are saying that they have to have 500,000 people to be efficient, effective and all the rest of it. Why are you not asking the question about what you are going to do with the existing small uni…”

“Do you think your local council is a good local authority?”

“There is a reason I ask that. Why can you not allow other proposals to come forward with a similar population to your own council?”

“What is the lower limit, then? You are saying, “If you meet all of the other criteria, but you do not meet this criterion”. You must have in your head, “We will accept 200,000”, or, “We will accept 300,000”. What is the lower figure?”

“I want to talk about how we got to the figure of 500,000. When you were coming up with this proposal within the Department, was that figure of 500,000 in there from the start or did the Department have a different figure in there, but when it got to the Treasury they said, “No, you are not having that. We are changing …”

“That is not true, is it? The priority programme is not just about mayoral, because the ones that are in the priority programme are doing local government reorganisation as well. You cannot say that the priority programme is just about having a mayor.”

“That does not make sense. You have done your priority programme, so you wrote out to people and said, “Do you want to join the priority programme?” Lots of people wrote in and you picked six, so some of those people did not make it on there. When everyone you have written out to submits their next letter, including the…”

“When are we going to get the list of the next tranche of councils that are going to go through this? You have done your initial tranche. They are working on their plans. You have written out to everyone else to say, “We want to hear all the options you have”. When is the next round likely to be announced of councils th…”

“I am Lewis Cocking, the MP for Broxbourne and a Hertfordshire county councillor.”

“We need to produce more energy at home from renewables and oil and gas, as we need a diverse energy mix in the UK. That will help us to deal with the volatile global energy markets. When will the Government change course and support the UK’s oil and gas industry, including the cluster based in north-east Scotland, and …”

“I am sorry, but that is not what the Minister said.”

“You are already adding confusion, are you not?”

“I am Lewis Cocking, MP for Broxbourne.”

“Can I ask a follow-up question about bidding? We have had lots of bidding pots that the last Government did. For example, my local authority of Broxbourne got levelling-up money. The Government then took a different approach with the UK shared prosperity fund, where each council got £1 million or thereabouts. I am not …”