Local Government Finance

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd]

The only thing I disagree with is that my right hon. Friend’s words are too mild, because what the Secretary of State is doing is the result of political malice. It is political malice because the simple reality is that he chose not to exercise the options that were available to him. He chose to make a local government settlement that puts at risk not only money—if it was only money perhaps we would move on—but the resources on which people depend for living their lives. It puts at risk those things that saw crime and disorder diminish in Manchester and that began to give young children in inner-city areas like mine opportunities in life that he would take for granted—the Secretary of State smiles. He is smiling while I talk about children being denied the opportunity to get on in life, because that does not matter to a Conservative Government, or to their Liberal Democrat friends and supporters. It does matter enormously, because they are brutalising our society.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Earlier, the Secretary of State mentioned extra resources for the concessionary fares for shire district councils, yet two weeks ago the Conservative and Liberal Democrat-led Greater Manchester transport authority scrapped the young people’s concession and the peak-time pensioners’ concessionary fare. That is the reality on the ground, and is it not another example of the unfairness?

[Tony Lloyd]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, because all of this is about political choice, and we have to face that squarely. The Secretary of State knows that it is about political choice, because he has form in local government. I remember when he was a national figure in local government; he is now a national figure in national government, but sadly the rhetoric and the reality have not changed. I believe that local government is fundamentally important to the lives that my constituents live. I believe that things such as swimming pools and leisure centres really do matter as part of the process of making our society more decent and more liveable and of properly giving our young people some stake in that society and some opportunity for the future. Frankly, he does not share the view that local government is the answer to our nation’s problems; he regards it as part of those problems.

I must admit that I genuinely like the Housing Minister—I am sorry if I damage his future by saying so—because he is a nice man. He said that he was going to Manchester next week, so I hope that he will come and talk seriously with the people in my town hall, and perhaps in the other local authorities around Greater Manchester, because he needs to recognise that the Government have simply got it wrong. If he wants to stand at the Dispatch Box, as he will in a moment, and tell me that the cuts are not the result of brutal, cynical, malicious and political choices, he can offer to come to my city and talk through the finances. If I am right and he is wrong, and Manchester cannot possibly manage without making serious cuts in public services, perhaps he will have the good grace to admit that the Government must change their minds. I hope that that will happen, but I fear that it will not.