Local Authority Grants: Impact of Cuts

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, may I speak in the gap? I apologise for this but due to an error on my part my name was not added to the list. I declare interests non-pecuniary with connections with the Scouts and the youth service in Lancashire. I concentrate my remarks on a belief that the severity and speed of the cuts in local government are unjustified and dangerous. I accept the need for cuts; my background in local government over 27 years tells me it’s not unusual, as the song says. However, the severity and depth is awful.

I am worried about the implications for the voluntary sector, whether it is for the youth service or victims of domestic violence. It is no good those in government or at any local level saying that we must protect the voluntary sector—the voluntary sector is voluntary in terms of local government, so much of the money is spoken for. I regret that we do not have the information on the RSG today but I know that there is evidence that local government is going to suffer massively.

Perhaps I could slightly challenge my noble friend Lord Parekh, because on the day that the Prime Minister spelled out the implications of the big society I was speaking to a Republican mayor from a small town in Texas. He said: “You know, this is not new. Ronald Reagan tried this. My local church is by and large a very wealthy community”; he was a pastor at the local church. He said: “We were only too willing to help. But then we discovered that to replace the public spending, 200 people in a local church community had to raise $500,000 a year—merely to stand still”. This was far below a level in which they could build up and implement improvements in local services.

I am deeply concerned about where we are heading. We have all sorts of local initiatives working well with people who are heavily committed to working in partnership, whether it is with the churches, Physically Handicapped and Able Bodied youth centres or victims of domestic violence. It takes years to build up the commitment, whether it is finding the churchwarden who will run the local church youth group, or finding the people who will help with the multicultural, multi-faith, multiracial youth group in my home town of Preston. Whatever it is, it takes years to develop this level of community activity and I am deeply worried that people are really crying in the wind if they think these services can be protected—but perhaps the Minister will be able to assure us that she will take back the message that we in local government ask not to be spared, but for equal treatment at the right speed.