Local Government Finance Settlement

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

As the Prime Minister mentioned yesterday, Newcastle City Council performs well on social care in the face of continued punitive cuts, but that will all be put at risk if the Government do not act responsibly to plug the £15 million funding gap. Today’s plan relies on local areas being able to build new homes and raise local taxes to solve a crisis in social care funding. Can the Secretary of State not see that this will entrench inequality across the country and that it is playing politics with vulnerable people’s lives?

[Sajid Javid]

The statement has just been made, and when the hon. Lady has the time to look at it a bit more closely, she will see that it does not rely on building new homes to get more adult social care—nothing of the sort. Perhaps that was not clear earlier and I am glad that she has raised it, because if she thought that, others might be thinking the same. The £240 million comes from the new homes bonus budget. That money will no longer go into that budget and has been transferred to adult social care budgets across the country on the basis of the relative needs formula. It will certainly benefit Newcastle upon Tyne and other areas.