House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoC

The SNP's business, energy and Industry spokesperson Drew Hendry pays tributes to councillors up and down the country. As a former councillor and council leader, he says he understands the problems facing councils.

Scotland's resource block grant, for day to day expenditure, will fall by over £200m in real terms by next year, he states.

"Scotland continues to be hit by UK austerity," he states, while the Conservatives in Scotland propose cutting £556m in services to fund tax breaks for the wealthy, the SNP is pushing progressive tax codes,

Agreeing with fellow SNP MP Alan Brown who intervenes on him, he says that England is actually the highest tax area in the whole of the UK.

In Scotland, the government provides free university tuition, free personal care for the elderly and free school meals, he states.

Mr Javid faces criticism for handing a significant under-spend by his department back to the Treasury rather than passing it down to councils.

He responds by suggesting Labour speaks to its London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, who has handed back £65m for affordable housing.

The housing secretary also emphasises to the House that an independent review found that Northamptonshire county council did not fail due to a lack of funding but because of financial mismanagement. He highlights a forthcoming review into fair funding and local tax raising.

Brexit makes an appearance, with Labour asking Mr Javid why his department has not made a bid for any of the government's contingency-planning funds.

Mr Javid replies that the Department for Communities and Local Government has been working on Brexit planning and that MPs "should wait and see".

Mr Javid finishes his statement by admitting there is "more to do" on both children and adult social care, and insists that his government is backing "innovative" councils.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Sajid Javid, the Communities and Housing secretary, begins his response by emphasising that he recognises the role councils play in the UK's democracy and public services. He says that satisfaction rates for council services remain steady as councils successfully absorb cuts.

Labour MP Catherine West intervenes to ask "how many Northamptonshires" - that is, councils which fail - there have to be before the government changes tack.

The discussion turns to hate speech and Islamophobia, with both sides expressing support for the rooting out of hatred from politics. Labour's Wes Streeting asks Mr Javid to "hold a mirror up" to his party, while Mr Javid refers to Monday's protest against anti-Semitism in the Labour party.

Mr Javid insists that the country "cannot afford to return to the Labour way of spend, borrow and tax" and uses a Labour intervention to criticise possible plans to introduce a land value tax.

House of Lords
Parliament

In an unusual move, crossbencher and former Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf says he's speaking for himself and other former judges in the House when he says Nick Hardwick was "an outstanding contributor to criminal justice in this country".

He says Professor Hardwick - who has resigned as chair of the Parole Board - had a role in the Worboys decision which was found to be "extremely limited" and the High Court made no personal criticism of him.

Ministry of Justice spokesman Lord Keen tells peers a situation had arisen in which the justice secretary and Professor Hardwick had to take a decision about whether it would be tenable for him to continue, but accepts Lord Woolf's comments.

Image source, HoL

Shadow attorney general Baroness Chakrabarti says the John Worboys decision calls attention to "deep flaws" in the system and it will cause concern for victims and for other members of the public.

"It can't be right the victims had to resort to a crowd-funded judicial review," she submits.

She also asks that an ongoing review of legal aid be sped up.

Lib Dem Lord Marks of Henley-of-Thames welcomes today's decision as symbolic of victims' proper place in the system and the need for all evidence to be considered.

He asks how greater transparency for Parole Board hearings will be implemented.

Ministry of Justice spokesman Lord Keen says proposals will be brought forward before the end of April, and a wider review will be carried out before the end of the summer.

House of Lords
Parliament

Ministry of Justice Lord Keen of Elie is repeating a statement made earlier in the Commons in which the justice secretary admitted "serious failings" in the probation system following the High Court's decision to uphold a legal challenge to the release of rapist John Worboys.

David Gauke told MPs he would ensure a review into the way evidence is given to the Parole Board case and abolish a rule which prevents the reasons for a probation decision being shared with victims.

House of Lords
Parliament

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Labour spokesman Lord Hunt of Kings Heath asks if the Electoral Commission has sufficient powers to investigate claims that the Vote Leave campaign broke electoral law during the 2016 referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union.

He says the Commission can impose a maximum £20,000 fine, asking if this is "anywhere near meeting the gravity of the allegations if proven".

Cabinet Office spokesman Lord Young of Cookham tells peers there are ongoing investigations into spending at the EU referendum but the Commission has not called for greater investigative powers.

He points out the investigation by the Information Commissioner's Office into Cambridge Analytica is separate.

But he recognises that the £20,000 fine has been criticised on the grounds "it might be regarded as the cost of doing business" and the government is considering representations from the Electoral Commission on this.

House of Lords
Parliament

Image source, Rex Features

Labour's Lord Kennedy of Southwark asks what assessment has been made of the risks to community football clubs from land development proposals.

He raises the case of south London team Dulwich Hamlet, who have been forced out of their stadium by owners Meadow Residential.

The property developers, who hope to redevelop the site, said Dulwich had repeatedly breached their licence.

Lord Kennedy says the present situation is "tragic" and all parties should get round the table to discuss a way for Dulwich Hamlet to return to Champion Hill.

Communities Minister Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth tells peers local authorities should assess the risk to sporting facilities by new developments.

He highlights that the sports minister has said she's minded to appoint a mediator.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Andrew Gwynne is making an impassioned speech in which he says house-building has fallen to its lowest level since the 1920s. The outsourcing of public services has led to one problem after another, he says.

"We have seen a catastrophic failure" of privatised services, he declares.

He tells MPs that demand for children's services is placing growing pressure on all councils. Such funding has been cut by 55% since the Conservatives came to office, he states, adding that every council has problems with funding for children's services.

"The result of these cuts has been appallingly clear," he says with 72,000 children last year being taken into care and a doubling in the number of serious child protection cases over the last seven years.

Mr Gwynne says that the "short-termism" from the government will lead to larger costs in the long run.

He says that if Surrey County Council is struggling for funding then "heaven help the Liverpools, the Manchesters, the Birminghams, the Tamesides and the Hulls of this world".

"Northamptonshire is the first, but it almost certainly won't be the last," he says, adding that promises of money tomorrow is not enough for councils.

House of Lords
Parliament

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Lib Dem Lord Scriven asks what progress has been made in implementing the recommendations of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration in the report on handling asylum claims made on the grounds of sexual orientation.

He says the UK is the only country in the EU which detains asylum seekers making claims on the grounds of sexuality indefinitely.

Home Office Minister Baroness Williams of Trafford says the government has accepted all the recommendations made by the inspector.

She insists "we do not detain asylum seekers indefinitely" and the "vast majority" of LGBT asylum seekers are dealt with in the non-detained system.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Shadow housing, communities and local government secretary Andrew Gwynne introduces the Labour motion on local government funding.

Mr Gwynne says that councils have had eight years of cuts, but Parliament has also allowed councils to increase council tax, meaning that the government are "shifting the blame" on to councillors of all political affiliations.

"They have devolved the blame," he states.

Mr Gwynne says that his council has lost close to £200m in local government funding, adding that the "Tory controlled Local Government Association" is also saying that more funding is needed for councils.

He says the government chose a £5bn "tax giveaway" bank levy in the budget, rather than funding local services.

It is "saddening that there is even a need for this debate today," he adds.

House of Commons
Parliament

The Bill gets introduced unopposed, with wide support from across the House.

With that, the Commons moves on to the first of two Opposition Day debates tabled by Labour.

The first is on local government funding and the second is on police funding.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Labour MP Conor McGinn is introducing a bill in the Commons which will legalise same sex marriage in Northern Ireland. He states that the fact that same sex couples can get married across the UK but not Northern Ireland "is a wrong that needs to be corrected".

He says that "the Assembly being in cold storage doesn't mean that Northern Ireland remains a cold house for LGBT rights".

He says that there are some people personally opposed to same sex marriage in Northern Ireland but those personal views must not be used to deny the rights of others.

"The God I know, is one of love, compassion and understanding," he says, referencing the fact that he is a practising Catholic.

Mark D'Arcy
Parliamentary Correspondent

That was probably Jeremy Corbyn’s best PMQs performance. The PM entered the chamber with all kinds of good news stories to tell (and helpful elves and sprites on the Conservative backbenches – Chris Philp, Lucy Allen - duly provided opportunities for her to tell them…) but she faced a well constructed and sustained attack from the Labour leader.

In World Autism Awareness Week (hence all the purple badges on display) he posed six questions on mental health issues, which collectively painted a picture of a struggling, cash-starved service, leaving people waiting in desperate need, and while the PM parried the first couple fairly effectively, her counter-attack ran out of steam by the end.

For once the exchanges went a bit beyond “cuts bad!” – “Labour bad!” and Mr Corbyn kept on coming, and was all the more effective for remarking that he did not doubt the PM’s personal commitment to the issue.

His choice of subject was astute on several levels. It didn’t leave room for the PM to pivot to Labour’s divisions on Russia and anti-semitism, and it wasn’t an area where the Conservative attack dogs could easily goad the Labour leader – and it mainlined back to issues around funding local services.

It is also worth noting what didn’t happen. In recent weeks there have been occasions when Labour MPs have directly attacked, not the Government, but their own leader. (John Woodcock’s attack on his line on Russia was perhaps the prime example, but it is far from the only one). This time there was no glimmer of internal dissent on the Labour side. And only a carefully-pitched Brexit question from Ken Clark, foreshadowing an issue which will surface in Parliament after Easter, marred the Conservative façade. Both parties may be seething with dissent and rivalry beneath the surface, but it wasn’t on parade here.

The other big issue to recur several times was the allegations around breaches of the funding rules at the EU referendum and the conduct of the consultancy, Cambridge Analytica.

The SNP's Ian Blackford and Alan Brown and the Greens' Caroline Lucas raised the subject - and received cautious straight bat answers about the need for all allegations to be investigated.

Meanwhile the Conservative David Morris riposted with a question about data breaches at Labour HQ. The exchanges didn't go anywhere, but nor did they kill the subject.

We will hear more about this.

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour MP Toby Perkins says what is missing is "any sense of apology to those victims" due to the "serious failing in decision making".

He asks the justice secretary to apologise to victims for the "many failures".

Mr Gauke replies that it is "no ordinary case" and it "should have been much more effectively dealt" by the Parole Board hearing.

"I deeply regret that that did not happen and I share the anger that he does that victims had to go through that process.

"I am sorry that that happened."

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative MP Anna Soubry asks what will be done to stop the victims of serious sexual offenders having to protest their parole.

Mr Gauke reports that there will now be more checks on decisions to release category A prisoners - those in the most secure prisons - directly into the community.

Yvette Cooper, the Labour chair of the home affairs committee, says there are "serious questions" for the Ministry of Justice too.

It is "not a good look," she says, simply to say it is the responsibility of the Parole Board. She thinks one of the big failings was the lack of support for victims.

Mr Gauke agrees on her "important point" about victims, saying they were receiving information from the media rather than being contacted directly.

As for the role of the Ministry of Justice, he says ways need to be found to improve the system.

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative chair of the Justice Committee, Bob Neill, asks the government to consider the importance of having forensically skilled lawyers to advise the secretary of state, and the argument for having the Parole Board panel led by a judge in serious cases.

The justice secretary says the panel should be led by someone with proper legal and judicial experience.

Image source, HoC

Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith says he would support Labour's calls for an "end-to-end review" of the Parole Board.

The campaign by John Worboys's victims has given the public a "rare glimpse" into "something many people across this House would find utterly terrifying", he adds.

He asks David Gauke whether the part of his review on transparency will be completed before the next Parole Board decision on the Worboys case.

Mr Gauke replies that it is not for him to determine when the Parole Board next looks at the case.

However he says he would be "astonished" if it took place before new transparency rules are in place.