Local Government Financing

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and John Denham

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Denham]

My right hon. Friend is right. She too has done the job that I did until the election, and she knows that there are many people in local government who are not of our party, but who have a genuine commitment to the communities they serve and by whom they were elected. Among the people who have been kicked in the teeth by these budget cuts are the locally elected representatives of this Government. The Tory leader of Blackpool council said:

“We are one of the most deprived areas in the land and we shouldn’t be singled out like this.”

He had better not go to the East Riding or Bromsgrove, because he will get a different message. He continued:

“I understand that some of the leafy lanes of Surrey and places have got away with it; well that can’t be right.”

The Lib Dem leader of Burnley council said:

“we are a deprived borough but once again we are suffering. I am disappointed and sick of us being kicked by budget cuts in Burnley.”

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

rose—

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Denham]

I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), and then I will give way to the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell).

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who is making a very good case. Is he as surprised as I am that members of Liberal Democrat-controlled Stockport council, who were extremely vocal in the run-up to the election about the fact that their grant settlement was not enough, have not uttered a single word of protest at the cuts now being forced on them?

[Mr Denham]

They have obviously been nobbled, but it remains to be seen whether they will stay nobbled once people at local level in my hon. Friend’s constituency understand what is really happening to them.