Local Government Finance

Clive Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

The settlement is unfair, and it is a disaster for my constituents. Wokingham borough council is already the lowest funded unitary authority per capita in the country, as it was under the Conservative Government for more than 10 years. As a result of this so-called fair funding review, the Labour Government are cutting a further £43 million from Wokingham borough council’s budget.

Wokingham is a Liberal Democrat-run council, and it has done its best over the last four years to balance the books while coping with massively growing adult social care costs. When I was leader of the council, I tried to improve the settlement, and my successor has continued to do so. These cuts will drive councils that are already struggling with rising costs for social care and children’s services to possible breaking point.

For 2025-26, Wokingham borough council allocated 39% of its budget to adult social care and 25% on children’s services. So much of the council’s budget is allocated to vital statutory services provided to residents, whether that is supporting SEND education, home-to-school transport or social care for vulnerable adults. The Government’s cuts to funding will have significant implications for these services—implications that need to be to be grappled with and planned for by councils. The settlement, though, provides little information for local authorities such as Wokingham on how to manage SEND costs until 2028, or on how existing deficits, which increase every day, will be resolved. I urge the Government to provide a clear timeline for when councils will receive certainty on the SEND deficit. Without a clear timetable, responsible financial planning is not possible.

We cannot just consider short and medium-term solutions. I have spoken to many local care providers, and I have seen through casework that there is a real problem with spiralling provision costs and availability. The Government must bring forward a fully funded long-term plan for adult social care reform, ensuring that local authority funding settlements are not determined by the escalating costs of a social care system that is bankrupting councils and placing unsustainable pressure on the NHS. Action needs to be taken now, after years of Conservative neglect.

From 2016, David Cameron and the five subsequent Prime Ministers promised reform to adult social care, and yet they achieved nothing. Ultimately, the Government need to re-think their fair funding review 2.0 if they want to avoid starving councils like Wokingham of much-needed cash to run their vital services.