Local Government Finance

Debate between Caroline Flint and James Morris

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Flint]

I do not know how to follow the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, because it is a good example of the grandstanding that has been going on. I should love the hon. Gentleman to send me the figures from Hampshire county council. Seven million pounds a year? I should very much like to see those figures, because I am not sure that they relate only to senior executive pay.

I have made it clear that I am not standing up for those who pay over the odds. [Interruption.] I have made that very clear, as the Minister for Housing and Local Government will see if he consults Hansard. What I am saying is that it is a distraction to suggest that the sort of cuts in executive pay that I have described, whether they involve 50% of chief executives or 25% of the senior management team, can make a significant dent in the savings that councils are having to find.

We are often told that if councils cannot use their reserves and if cuts in executive pay are not enough, they can make their savings by sharing services or merging back-room functions. Let us leave aside the fact that more than 200 councils are already sharing services or facilities, or are planning to do that. If creative service redesign could protect services and stop unnecessary job losses we would support it, as would our local Labour colleagues, but by front-loading the cuts as the Secretary of State has chosen to do, the Government have given councils no choice other than to find immediate savings, which will actually mean cuts in services and jobs.

We have heard a great deal today about Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith and Fulham, but as ever, the devil is in the detail. When we go beyond the headlines, we find that although those councils will lose more than £50 million in funding this year, savings for this year amount to only £5 million. We can only conclude either that the Secretary of State is so detached from the real world that he does not understand that, or that this is a deliberate tactical attempt to distract attention from the problems created by the Tory-led Government. In either event, councils and the communities that they serve deserve better.

[James Morris]

Is not one of the remarkable aspects of the settlement the fact that, in these difficult times, the Supporting People grant has been relatively protected by the Secretary of State? He has done precisely what I think the right hon. Lady wants to do, which is to ensure the protection of the most vulnerable. Should not the right hon. Lady be celebrating that?