Covid-19: Local Government Finance

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh]

My Lords, I have made clear that this is far from a do-nothing Government. In just two months we have already provided £3.2 billion—an extraordinary sum—to deal with the demand pressures of Covid-19. I have also made quite clear that an announcement will be forthcoming in a few days to provide the support that councils need for the rest of the financial year.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, as well as providing the resource to help councils through this Covid crisis, local and national government need to come together after that and have a plan for the future and how best to benefit from all the opportunities from new technologies, not least artificial intelligence, distributed ledger technology, quantum computing and all the things that could deliver better services to residents by more cost-effective means?

[Lord Greenhalgh]

My Lords, my noble friend is quite right that we need to think about how we can deliver services differently. The use of artificial intelligence and other technologies will provide an important way of being able to do that.