David Winnick
Main Page: David Winnick (Labour - Walsall North)(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Yasmin Qureshi
I agree with the hon. Lady. The chief executive of my fire authority says the same thing. I was going to talk about the cuts using the example of Greater Manchester fire authority, because that relates to my constituency.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on initiating the debate, and on her conduct of it. I am full of praise for what she is doing. It is difficult to understand why the review formula should mean a 13% fall in the financial grant to the West Midlands over the past two years, which compares to a figure of 6.5% nationally, and why the met areas, and certainly the West Midlands, have been picked on and victimised as we have.
Ian Austin
That is absolutely right. Brigades that have not undertaken these reforms should be the ones that come under the most pressure to achieve them now. If savings have to be made, those are the areas from which they should come.
One of the reasons why West Midlands stands to suffer the most is that we maintain the lowest council tax precept in the country. It is just £47.83 for a band D property, compared with £87.84 for residents in County Durham. We are therefore more heavily reliant on formula grant than others, so we receive a much higher cut to the overall force budget. Furthermore, part of the difference has been caused by the Government’s decision to award a specific grant to fire authorities and councils that is equivalent to a council tax rise of 2.5%—if council tax is frozen this year. That has benefited those with higher council tax, as they have obviously received proportionately more.
Representatives of the metropolitan authorities have put together a series of cost-neutral proposals that will ensure a fairer settlement in 2013-14 and 2014-15. They are asking the Minister to consider implementing a flat percentage cut to formula grant, so that all fire services play their part in achieving the savings that he says have to be made. They say that that could easily be achieved through ministerial use of the floor damping mechanism and that metropolitan authorities would still shoulder the heaviest cuts over the four years.
Mr Winnick
In a briefing paper from the Association of Metropolitan Fire and Rescue Authorities, of which I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware, it is stated that if the present formula goes ahead and we do not have the fair formula that we want, there will be 40 redundancies on a 13.5% reduction in grant, which is obviously a great danger to our constituents. A 27% cut over the next few years could cause the loss of 300 posts after natural wastage. Is that not a great danger to our constituents in the west midlands? I hope that the Minister will respond and recognise our concern.
Ian Austin
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I hope that the Minister will address those points when he responds to the debate later.