Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Bennett Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)]

17. What steps she is taking with local authorities to help ensure that they have adequate resources to fund local services.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

21. What steps she is taking to help ensure the financial sustainability of local authorities.

[The Minister for Local Government and English Devolution (Jim McMahon)]

Councils across the country, of all political stripes, work hard to deliver vital public services in our country. We know that 14 years of mounting pressure is biting hard. We are committed to moving towards a multi-year funding settlement, ending wasteful bidding competitions that essentially set one council against another. Last week, I met political group leaders at the Local Government Association conference to understand what specific demand pressures they are facing, and we are committed to working together on those big issues. Members will know that we cannot pre-empt the Budget statement due later in the week, but we are of course fully engaged in that process. We stand ready to speak to any council experiencing financial difficulties, as I confirmed in my letter to MPs just over a week ago.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McMahon]

Like every Member of the House, my hon. Friend will know that those 14 years have taken their toll, and that it will take more than three months to repair that, but we are absolutely committed to repairing the foundations, and our multi-year financial settlements will give security. Of course, we recognise that the demand-led pressures in many places are the back-end of a bigger problem. Temporary accommodation relates to the housing crisis that needs fixing. The same applies to children’s services and adult social care.

[Alison Bennett]

The financial future of West Sussex county council is bleak: it faces a cumulative budget gap of over £200 million for 2029-30. At present, 64% of the council’s budget is being spent on adult and children’s social services, and that is set to rise. How will the Minister ensure that West Sussex county council and others do not have to close libraries, cut bus routes or reduce road repairs in order to meet the growing demand for the most vulnerable members of our community?

[Jim McMahon]

We always say that local government is paid for one way or the other: either we pay at the front-end through fair funding being fairly distributed across the country, or we pay at the back-end because eventually the system falls over and we must repair the damage. If we take ourselves back to the coalition years, when austerity first came in, the cruelty was that we did not reform public services, repairing them from the ground up, to get ahead of those system changes. That was a wasted opportunity.