Local Government Funding

Debate between Lord Beith and Caroline Flint

Monday 6th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes with concern that local councils will lose, on average, 27 per cent. of their funding over the next four years, compared to 11 per cent., on average, for Whitehall departments; regrets the frontloading of reductions in funding which means that the heaviest cuts will fall in the first year; believes that the unexpected severity of the cuts will result in substantial job losses in the public and private sector, undermine the voluntary sector and hit frontline services; regrets the inadequate level of capitalisation available to local councils to deal with redundancy costs of up to £2 billion; further notes the commitment in the coalition agreement to ensure that fairness is at the heart of decisions and that those most in need are protected; is disappointed that the most deprived areas will be hit hardest by the reductions in funding; and calls on the Government to revise its proposals before making the provisional finance settlement to ensure that any reductions in funding are more evenly spread over four years and do not fall disproportionately on the most deprived communities.

There is common cause across the House in recognising the need to reduce the deficit. Labour had a plan to halve Britain’s borrowing over a four-year period. That would have meant cuts in spending and would have resulted in reductions to local government funding, but not like the Government’s cuts. I will not let the coalition pass the blame for cuts of their choosing, their design and their timing on to us. Let me, once and for all, nail the myth that there is no alternative. The Government had a choice.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

That would be a reasonable position for the right hon. Lady to adopt if she set out in some detail how Labour’s programme of cuts would impact on local government.

[Caroline Flint]

We are dealing with a package, which is what local councils will face. Even on the coalition Government’s most extravagant predictions of what we might have cut, with which I do not concur, the cuts proposed by the coalition Government, of whom the right hon. Gentleman is an ally, would have meant another £2.2 billion worth of cuts over a four-year period, and they are front-loaded in a way that is dangerous for local communities and the services that they need.