Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Jim McMahon

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

That is exactly the point of moving to a fairer funding formula—and we will of course consult on the component parts making that up. We have to take this in the round—I genuinely want any part of the country and any type of local authority to be able to interrogate the system, and even if they disagree with the quantum—there will always be arguments that—to be able to say that the rationale and the evidence base hold. It is a matter of accepted fact that there is a premium on the cost of rural service delivery, just because of the travelling involved. For example, for a home care worker, there is the travel time between appointments and all the rest of it. However, it is probably also accepted that the evidence base is not as robust and strong as it needs to be, so we want to make sure through this process that we take into account the need for that strong and robust evidence base.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)]

Fourteen years of Tory austerity and fiscal mismanagement have halved the central Government funding for Newcastle city council, sucked the blood vampire-like from our local economy, and left local businesses and families drowning in uncertainty, so I welcome this increased funding and the specific commitments on housing and social care. However, can the Minister reassure me that there is further light at the end of the tunnel, because this Government’s work on reforming public services, local funding, business rates and innovation investment will mean that the people of Newcastle and the north-east will have the power and the resources to build the public services and the economy that we choose?

[Jim McMahon]

That is completely right. By the way, I give credit to council officials, frontline workers and councillors, because it is local government that has led on innovation and reform and that has bound together local communities in very difficult times—and, I would say, with other parts of the system too often working against the local interest, not with it. We need to find a way of sending that message not to local government, because I think it is understood there, but to the wider system. We need to say that when we make such public sector investment in Newcastle and other places, we expect the whole system to rally around a single plan for the place and its people. We expect local government to be respected as the local leader—the convenor of place—that can hold the ring to make sure there is not duplication or contradictions and that the money delivers the right outcomes for local people. We are absolutely committed to that.