Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement
Debate between Jim McMahon and Kevin Hollinrake(6 days, 14 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jim McMahon
Here we go again. I would think that after 14 years of councils being on year-to-year watch to find out what position they would be in, the Conservatives would at least welcome the preparation now for multiyear settlements. They had 14 years to get their house in order, and they could not even line up to give councils more than 12 months’ certainty about what was coming. The one thing councils were absolutely certain about was that it was only going to be bad news after bad news. When there were crises in adult social care and children’s services and when homelessness was rising at a rate of knots, the last Government were completely missing in action—that was what councils were facing. How many councils went bust on their watch? Councils were lining up saying to the Government that they could not afford—
Jim McMahon
Let us talk about Birmingham, because the Opposition referenced the £3 million new homes bonus. The new recovery grant—£600 million of brand new money targeted at those councils with high deprivation and low tax bases—just for Birmingham is £39 million. That will start the repair work of rebuilding the foundations.
When we talk about fair funding and why it is needed, we will not do what the previous Government did, where they put party politics ahead of the national interest. Let me remind the Conservatives of what the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), said in Tunbridge Wells in 2022:
“We inherited a bunch of formulas from Labour that shoved all the funding into deprived urban areas and that needed to be undone. I started the work of undoing that.”
That is a record of shame. It is nothing to preach about. To right the wrongs of the past 14 years and finally get money where it is needed, this Government will work for public service, not party interest.