CONSERVATIVE councillors have claimed Jeremy Corbyn misled parliament in comments comparing homelessness and child poverty figures in Swindon and Surrey.

But are they right? 

David Renard, the Conservative leader of Swindon Borough Council, claimed Mr Corbyn “didn’t know what he was talking about”. 

Questioning the Labour leader’s claim that homelessness was three times higher in Swindon than in Surrey, cabinet member for housing Cathy Martyn went further. Mr Corbyn had “grossly misled Parliament and the public, and knowingly damaged the reputation of Swindon for nothing more frivolous than a headline," she claimed.

The accusations followed a raucous Prime Minister’s Questions session in the House of Commons this week, where Mr Corbyn and Mrs May traded statistics and insults on the scale of council cuts.

Labour accused the Conservatives of having left towns and cities to “fend for themselves after nine years of austerity”. 

Defending cuts to local authority budgets, Mrs May admitted: “We have over the years asked councils to take difficult decisions in relation to living within our means.” But said her government had been forced to make the cuts because of a deficit inherited from the Labour administration in 2010.

Labour has defended Mr Corbyn’s sums. A party spokesman said of claims Mr Corbyn had misled parliament: “These accusations are just an attempt by the Tories to distract people from the real issues. Since 2010, homelessness has risen dramatically across the country, child poverty has risen, while local councils have seen their funding slashed. 

“In Swindon, the Tories have cut the crime prevention budget by 95 per cent and closed all the children’s centres. Swindon deserves better.”

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Jeremy Corbyn in the House of Commons on Wednesday Picture: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/PA

We look at three of the claims voiced in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

Claim one: child poverty

Mr Corbyn’s first claim concerned child poverty, which he said was a third higher in Swindon than Surrey.

Comparing the two areas is difficult. Surrey has an estimated population of 1.2m, whereas Swindon is closer to 220,000. Surrey is a county, divided into 11 district councils, and Swindon is a unitary authority responsible for all services within the borough boundary. 

Estimates from the End Child Poverty Coalition, calculated based on tax credit data, suggests that 21.41 per cent of Swindon children live in poverty – after their families’ housing costs were taken into account. For Surrey’s district councils the equivalent figure is 14.7 per cent, meaning Swindon’s child poverty rate was 45 per cent higher than Surrey’s.

We spoke to Aaron Webb, youth worker at Central Swindon North Parish Council. He works in Penhill. According to Swindon Borough Council’s own estimates published in 2016, almost half of children living in central Penhill were impoverished.

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The areas of Swindon with the highest levels of child poverty (Source: Swindon JSNA)

Aaron said he worked with children forced to wear the same clothes for days on end and their parents might not be able to put food on the table. While he could not say that child poverty specifically had increased over the 10 years he had worked with young people, poverty generally was on the rise.

“There’s massive poverty and a lot of parents don’t know where they are getting their next meal on the table,” he said. 

“People don’t think it goes on in the modern day, but it’s getting greater in certain respects.”

In the north west corner of Walcot child poverty rates were estimated by Swindon Borough Council in 2016 to be around 41 per cent. 

Emma Bushell, ward councillor for Walcot and Park North, said: “It is unacceptable that in a town with as much wealth as Swindon, almost half of the children in one part of the town are living in poverty.

"Research has shown that child poverty is a major determinant of people’s life chances. The Swindon children growing up in poverty today are likely to have worse education outcomes, earn less, experience poorer health and die younger. This simply isn’t fair. It also means that the potential of hundreds of children is unlikely to be fulfilled and is therefore lost to society.”

Claim two: funding cuts

Mr Corbyn said Swindon would have lost £235 per household in government funding cuts since 2010, whereas a household in Surrey will receive more money from government. 

“Can the prime minister explain why Swindon faces cuts while Surrey gets more money?” he asked.

The £235 figure appears to be based on the Labour Party’s council cuts calculator, comparing funding from central government in 2010 to funding in 2019. 

According to the government’s core spending power statistics, which compares the overall revenue funding available for local areas with the number of households, both Surrey and Swindon has seen core spending power rise since 2015/16. 

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A screenshot from Labour's council cuts website, entry for Swindon

In Swindon, core spending per household has increased from £1,537 in 2015/16 to £1,554 in 2019/20. In Surrey, it’s up from £1,680 to £1,757. 

Look at the budget reports for Swindon and Surrey councils and you see a different picture. In Swindon, council income from government grants has fallen from £13.6m in 2017/18 to £4.3m in 2019/20. 

In Surrey it appears to have increased – from £244m in 2017/18 to £310m. 

However, as Robert Buckland MP pointed out following the PMQ debates on Wednesday, these figures do not appear to include “extra” funding – like the £30m earmarked for A&E improvements at Great Western Hospital.

Speak to councillors and council officers, though, and people feel poorer. David Renard, Swindon Borough Council leader, acknowledged the difficulties faced by his local authority. But he added: “This has been happening to all councils across the country. We’ve had to do things differently, but we’ve done things effectively.”

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Coun Jim Grant, leader of the Labour group on Swindon Borough Council

Jim Grant, Swindon Labour leader, was less diplomatic: “Nine years of damaging Tory austerity is taking its toll across the country, with over 1,000 fewer Sure Start centres, 760 fewer youth centres and big cuts to our police.

"Here in Swindon, two Tory MPs and a Tory Council have closed all of our Sure Start centres and slashed the crime prevention budget by 95 per cent. Swindon deserves better – and a Labour council will invest more to keep people safe, reopen children’s centres and take measures to tackle homelessness.”

Claim three: homelessness

Homelessness is three times higher in Swindon than in Surrey, Jeremy Corbyn told MPs. He went on to cite research by the New Local Government Network, with 67 per cent of council chief executives, leaders and mayors saying they did not think they had enough money to fulfil a new legal duty on local authorities to prevent homelessness.

But the claim was questioned by Coun Cathy Martyn, cabinet member for housing at Swindon Borough Council. 

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Tents in Spring Gardens, Swindon town centre, last year

She claimed Swindon has one of the lowest levels of homelessness in the country. “We should be working together on reducing homelessness not wasting time using it as a political football,” she said. “We are determined to continue to make a real difference to vulnerable people and Swindon is a recognised leader in how we can support the needs and individual circumstances of those currently without a permanent home.”

Who’s right? 

Last year’s official count put the number of rough sleepers in Swindon at 35. Except that was an estimate. In the previous year, 2017, the number was 45. 
Threshold Housing Link, one of the charities in Swindon that supports rough sleepers, said last year they were still seeing high numbers of homeless people on Swindon’s streets. Last year, the charity’s then CEO Graeme Willis claimed his outreach workers were still regularly seeing up to 50 rough sleepers: “Without additional facilities and a coherent strategy these numbers will continue to rise."

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The number of rough sleepers in Swindon since 2010 (Source: ONS)

According to government statistics, there are 3.8 rough sleepers in Swindon per 10,000 households. By comparison, an average of Surrey’s 11 district councils estimates there are 1.4 rough sleepers per 10,000 households.

In the second quarter of last financial year, there were 2.77 households living in temporary accommodation in Swindon per 1,000 overall households. The Surrey figure was 1.55. 

On both measures, Swindon’s homelessness rate is higher than Surrey’s. But it is not three times higher.