Local Government Finance Settlement

Debate between Lord Liddle and Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

Thursday 15th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a county councillor in Cumbria and someone who is not a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Perhaps I may express my sympathy for the Minister in having to come before us with such a pathetic Statement. Does he not recognise that the fundamental problem the Government are facing is that they cannot meet the expectations of the public for decent schools, decent health and decent social care on the financial perspective they have set out of reducing public spending to 36% of GDP by 2020? We have to fundamentally reconsider that objective.

Will the Minister give us some indication that there might be just a little bit of joined-up thinking in the Government and assure us that this extra social care fund which is being provided will be directed at those parts of the country where the NHS is suffering from severe bed-blocking problems, as is the case in my own county of Cumbria? These issues are really threatening the provision of decent healthcare in our area.

Thirdly, I want to make a point that no one else has made. The Statement contains a threat to the most local of local democracies; I am talking about parish and town councils. In my experience—there is a town council in Wigton in the area I represent in Cumbria—they do not have big budgets, but they are trying to use money to make up for community grants for helping swimming pools and local leisure facilities that have inevitably been cut back by county and district councils as a result of the scale of the cuts in grant that the Government have implemented. To try to restrict their freedom of action is, frankly, petty.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, for his contribution. The picture he presents is at odds with the picture of local government achieving, and being recognised as achieving, around the country. Yes, there are challenges we are meeting, not least dealing with delayed discharges. As I have indicated, that is essential to the Government’s thesis; the Statement indicates that too. It is important that we deal with the issue of integrating health and social care, and £6 billion—not an inconsiderable sum—will be invested in that. We hope that by the end of this Parliament the position will be much better than it is now. This is not an entirely new problem—not that I am suggesting the noble Lord said it was—but one that has grown up over time. Therefore, it is a problem that will take time to solve.

On the particular point the noble Lord made about parish and town councils, once again I do not recognise this action we have taken against them. We have recognised the very important role they fulfil. As a Government we are keen to ensure that council tax increases are kept to a minimum. I hope the noble Lord will agree that that is fair. They have gone up excessively in the past under successive Governments, but, as I have indicated, at the end of this Parliament they will be lower in real terms than they were when we came to power in 2010. That is a significant achievement. Meanwhile, I assure the noble Lord that we will work with parish and town councils to ensure they continue to offer the quality of services they currently do, to help them in that regard and to ensure they have continuing value for money on that front.