Local Government Funding
Debate between Lord Watts and Heather Wheeler
Heather Wheeler
Of course, I know about the Gershon savings. I also remember the squeals about it and the synthetic savings that were made. The opportunity was not taken to look root and branch at what local councils need to do and should do, at the way they should do it and at the value for money they provide for their residents. It is hugely important that people take an innovative look at the way in which local councils work, and that they take this opportunity. The whole country is in a financial crisis, and nobody should be in position where they do not have to take their percentage of it. That would be completely wrong.
The new coalition Government are going to look at the floors and ceilings, the caps, the huge amount of ridiculous comprehensive area assessment-type targets, and the millions of pounds that all our councils have had to spend on this sort of thing. This coalition Government are about freeing people up to organise themselves in such a way that they provide the vital services that their people want at the same time as having the guts to say, “We don’t want to do that any more. We’ll have a referendum on it. Do you agree with us?” In our council in South Derbyshire, 1% on the rates raises £50,000. Given the floors and ceilings that I have had to put up with for the past 13 years of the Labour Government, we have easily lost £2 million there. The same goes for the fire authority in Derbyshire, and the police authority as well.
Mr Watts
May I inform the hon. Lady that those floors were introduced to protect her local authority? Local authorities such as St Helens should have received a far bigger grant allocation every year, but we did not put right what the previous Tory Government had done, which was to take money from the most deprived parts of the community and give it to the most affluent parts.
Heather Wheeler
That is a really interesting point. All I know is that I have lost £2 million in South Derbyshire. I do not know whether it should have been £2.5 million or £0.5 million; I know that I lost £2 million.
Heather Wheeler
That was a very helpful intervention. Fortunately, someone has some facts at their fingertips, rather than the usual pure emotion.
Mr Watts
The hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) need to understand the amount of money that has gone into Liverpool. Under the Labour Administration, many millions of pounds went into the regeneration of the city. The Labour Government had a good record on Liverpool city council.
Heather Wheeler
What an amazing situation. We are completely blind to the reality of what has been going on. The ratepayers of South Derbyshire also know about how much money comes in. They were used to council tax rises of 9%, 13% and 17%, which was absolutely outrageous for hard-working families. It was completely ridiculous. We were left to fend for ourselves, and it just was not good enough.
The new localism Bill, and the new arrangements for the rate support grant, will have a major effect on what we do. We will be able to do away with the horrendous top-down targets that our accountancy and finance staff used to spend hundreds of hours dealing with. All of that will be swept away, and thank goodness for that. I am really looking forward to the announcements just before Christmas. There is one more Christmas present that the Minister can give me, relating to Gypsies and Travellers, but we can talk about that another time. We have had to put up with scaremongering for the last however many hours, and the debate is to go on until 10 o’clock, apparently, so goodness knows what else the Opposition will come up with.