Clive Betts
Main Page: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)(10 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
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Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Kettering is an excellent example of a good Conservative council managing its finances properly for the benefit of local residents, keeping down the cost of living by keeping council tax frozen and providing excellent front-line services, as good councils all over the country are doing.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
In the June spending round, the Chancellor stated that in future years local government spending would drop not by the 10% to 15% that the Local Government Association said, but by 2.3%. The Prime Minister has repeated that figure. I wrote to him asking how it was calculated, but got a response from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that did not do that. Will the Minister now explain where that 2.3% figure is in the document and how it is calculated? If it is not in here now, will he write to me, placing a copy in the Library, showing how it has been calculated?
Brandon Lewis
I am happy to write to the Chairman of the Communities and Local Government Committee with the figures. He will find that the gap between some of the points the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) made and the real figures is explained by the fact that we are interested in how much local authorities have to spend on their residents, not just what they spend on bureaucracy and red tape, through the Government grant.