Spending Review 2020

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I remind the Grand Committee of my relevant interests as a councillor and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

The Government have a much-vaunted aim in the levelling-up agenda. Councils are key to this. Sadly, however, there is no sign of that happening in this spending review. The headline figure of a rise of 4.4% in councils’ spending power hides the fact that more than half of that is as a result of the expectation that councils will ask council tax payers to pay 3% extra as a social care precept. This sticking plaster for adult social care was introduced in 2015. All told, this means that council tax payers’ bills will rise 13% above inflation to shore up escalating social care demands. This is a regressive tax that hits the poor hardest and raises least in the poorest areas of the country, thus expanding inequalities. Perhaps the Minister can explain how this can be part of the levelling-up agenda.

Further discrimination against the poorest towns can be found in the distribution of the Towns Fund, which has resulted in the most needy towns, as defined by the Secretary of State’s own criteria, being refused funding so that other towns selected by Ministers can benefit. These two factors together illustrate that levelling up demands more than capital investment: social capital requires investment, too.