Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

While I welcome any funding for local government, it is not enough. Enfield Council has had £193 million of cuts to funding since 2010. It has had to spend £64 million in dealing with the covid-19 emergency, yet has only received less than half of that from the Government, and it has not been receiving its fair share of public health funding since 2013, receiving half of what neighbouring boroughs get. When will the Government level up for Enfield and give it the proper funding it deserves?

[Robert Jenrick]

As Secretary of State for local government, I am familiar with people saying that there is not enough money; that, I think, is a refrain that all of my predecessors of all parties have known. However, I do not think it is fair with respect to Enfield this year. We have provided it with £43.6 million of covid-19 funding so far. We have provided it with £44 million for its local business community, and the settlement that we are setting out today provides a further £12.5 million, taking Enfield’s core spending power to a quarter of a billion pounds. That will be a 5.3% increase—a very substantial increase—for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman’s council and his constituents.