London Boroughs: Financial Support

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I hope my noble friend has been in the Chamber when I have spoken before about the £39 billion investment that our Government have made into social and affordable housing. We look forward to working with our partners in local authorities to deliver that housing. I hope that that, along with other adjustments that we are making, including changes to right to buy, will help to improve the situation for those who are currently sitting on housing waiting registers.

[Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I think the general feeling in the House is that funding for local government is in urgent need of reform but any reform will take some time. I suggest to the Minister that an option that could be available in the shorter term is to use the fact that there are huge pension fund surpluses in local authority pension schemes as a reason to have an employer contribution holiday or significant reduction in the £10 billion put into these schemes every year, so that some of that money can be redistributed to the urgent needs of the local populations.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

There is much to be done in looking at local authority pension funds—I agree with the noble Baroness on that. We are working through that process. Of course, there is a balance to be struck between how you might use that for capital spending, which would be an investment that there may be a return on, and using it for some of the pressures that we are experiencing on revenue spending, which is the real pressure for local authorities at the moment. It would not be a long-term solution for that, but the noble Baroness makes a very good point. We are exploring what more can be done around the pension funds and using that money for local spend.