Fair Funding Review

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I cannot give the noble Lord the exact answer to his question now. We have said that creating this multi-year funding settlement will help local authorities to plan for the future. We will keep in constant contact with our local government community to make sure that the changes we are making are made on up to date data—we have looked at a completely new dataset for the indices of multiple deprivation—because the data that was being used was not up to date. The Government will be working closely with local authorities as we move this forward to ensure that it is delivering the change we all want to see.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, local authorities remain the biggest funders of arts and cultural services. These are important for growth and employment growth, yet since 2010, spending on these areas, alongside heritage, tourism and libraries, has decreased by more than 50%. While recognising that there are many important pressures on local authorities, will the fair funding review allow for proper reinvestment in this significant area?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I very much agree. I have seen on the front line how cuts to local government funding have affected so much the provision of social activities, culture and leisure in our communities. It is very important that local government has the ability to make provision for local communities in those areas. What happened was that the harder it was for a local council to raise funds, the more they seemed to be penalised through the system. The more deprived a community was, the less likely they were to have the headroom to deliver the kinds of services the noble Earl speaks about. We need to change that, and we are working on reversing that.