Public Service Delivery: Northamptonshire Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities
Andrew Lewer
Main Page: Andrew Lewer (Conservative - Northampton South)Department Debates - View all Andrew Lewer's debates with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities
Public Service Delivery: Northamptonshire
Andrew Lewer Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Rishi Sunak
My Department is in constant dialogue with individual councils and the LGA. It funds the LGA with £21 million to conduct peer reviews, so that we can build up a detailed picture of what is happening across local authorities. When there are issues in which we need to be involved, we will of course be involved. We will keep the situation under review.
Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)
I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and an author of other LGA peer reviews. As a former leader of Derbyshire County Council, I believe that local mismanagement has led to this situation, but I also believe that there are Northamptonshire and sector-wide fairer funding issues to be addressed. Prominent among the funding problems is the huge and growing cost of adult care. Will the Minister consider establishing a royal commission on health and social care, as well as making changes to the funding formula?
Rishi Sunak
I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting the importance of social care. It was in response to the pressure on social care budgets that this Government announced in last year’s spring Budget £2 billion of new funding for social care. We will be discussing that more broadly tomorrow. My hon. Friend is also right to highlight the importance of fair funding. The fair funding consultation opened in December, and I urge all councils to make submissions to the consultation, so that we can start to put in place a new funding formula for local government and ensure that it captures all the cost drivers that councils think are relevant.