Local Government Finance

Debate between Helen Morgan and Steve Reed

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

Let me return to my theme for a moment before I take any more interventions.

The right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) and colleagues across the House will remember that the Tories used to belittle local councillors as part-time volunteers and took away their pension rights to deter people from risking a career on the frontline of local government. Today, it falls to this Government to fix the foundations that the Tories smashed apart.

We are rebuilding local government so that councils can rebuild their communities. We are making good on our promise to introduce multi-year funding settlements so that councils can plan for the future with certainty. We are reconnecting funding with need so that we can take off the Tory shackles that have held back so many of our towns and communities for so long. We are ending wasteful bidding wars for funding, freeing councils to focus on filling in potholes, not forms. We are putting fairness back into a system that the Tories bragged about breaking. We reject the decline that ripped the heart out of towns and communities up and down this country. We choose change.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

Shropshire council is about to see a 10% cut in its core funding from central Government, having been terribly badly run by the Conservatives for the previous 16 years before the Lib Dem administration took over in May. The Government have given the council permission to put up its council tax by 9% without a referendum, but that does not even touch the sides of the cut in funding from central Government. How is Shropshire, which needs to receive exceptional financial support in this year, ever going to fill the ever-growing black hole unless the funding from Government reflects the costs of delivering services in rural areas?

[Steve Reed]

I believe the hon. Lady has had several meetings with my colleague the Minister for Local Government. It is right and very important that we should align funding with need; that is the only way to ensure that funding is fair across the whole country. That is what we promised to do in our manifesto, and that is what we are doing with this settlement.

Storm Bert

Debate between Helen Morgan and Steve Reed

Monday 25th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s thanks to those who have been involved in protecting people from the impact of flooding. I can write to him on his specific question about the Dawlish railway.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

I remind Members that I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on flooding and flooded communities. Large areas of North Shropshire are often under water, either from river flooding or from prolonged rainfall. This weekend has been no exception, with villagers cut off for long periods of time and vast swathes of farmland flooded. This year, there are farmers who have been unable to plant crops in the current harvest, which has just been collected, and who will not be able to do so next year—they are in a desperate state. When the Secretary of State reviews the flooding formula and the funding, will he consider how farmers will be compensated for storing vast quantities of water upstream, regardless of whether they like it or not?

[Steve Reed]

We can take that into account when we look at the flooding formula, but I am sure the hon. Lady will welcome, as I do, the additional £60 million in the Budget for farmers who have been affected by the severe levels of flooding experienced earlier in the year.