Clive Lewis
Main Page: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman is wrong. The decisions we have made to reduce spending would have been made by any party that came into power after the election. The difference is that our party has devolved powers so that local authorities can have greater concern for their own future. On the change we have made to the methodology, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that it is an improvement and that the system is fairer than that in previous years.
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
2. What recent assessment he has made of the fairness of local government funding.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
17. What recent assessment he has made of the fairness of local government funding.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
The local government finance settlement reflects a detailed assessment of the needs and challenges of each area. We have announced a fair funding review and will work with local authorities to determine the appropriate funding needs of different types of areas as we move to 100% business rates retention by 2020.
Clive Lewis
Last month, the Government announced that 85% of the £300 million transitional fund for local government is going not to Labour or Liberal Democrat councils, but to Conservative councils. Does the Secretary of State agree with the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) that that does not matter, because those areas “don’t vote for us”?
Greg Clark
I am surprise to hear the hon. Gentleman ask that question, given that his county of Norfolk has benefited from £1.6 million through the transitional grant, which I would have thought that he would welcome. On what party colleagues have to say, he should take advice from Bury Council, which has said:
“The methodology is a welcome improvement on that employed for allocating revenue support grant reductions…and goes some way to redressing…years in which poorer metropolitan authorities have received an unequal share of…funding.”
The hon. Gentleman should talk to his party members as well as his constituents.