Local Government Financing

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Denham]

They have obviously been nobbled, but it remains to be seen whether they will stay nobbled once people at local level in my hon. Friend’s constituency understand what is really happening to them.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Denham]

If I may, I will just complete the point I was making by giving one last example.

We were told that there would be a 2% limit on cuts; however, Corby council faces a cut of 15% in one year, because the figures did not include the housing and planning delivery grant. Corby council did the right thing: it gave planning permission for houses and economic development—and now it has had to pay for that with a 15% cut. I now give way to the hon. Member for Croydon Central.

[Mr Denham]

If what the hon. Gentleman says means anything, he is arguing that we should have shifted more priority towards the poorest and that we actually made a mistake back in 2006. That does not fit coherently with the approach of his hon. Friends.

[Mr Skinner]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should not be too surprised at what this Tory Government are doing to shift the balance towards the wealthier areas of Britain, because every pit in Bolsover was shut by the previous Tory Government, throwing thousands of people on to the dole and creating deprivation that hitherto had not existed? Now the Tories are doing it again, but there is a difference because this time they are doing it under the cloak of so-called “respectability”, using those tinpot Liberals to cover for them. The Liberals will undoubtedly have to pay for it at the end.

[Mr Denham]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. One of the things that we need to recognise is that, sadly, in large areas of the country, particularly in my own area of the south, as well as in the south-east and the eastern region, local government has for too long been divided between the Tweedledum of the Tory party and the Tweedledee of the Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats have often got away with claiming that they were a progressive alternative to the Tories, but that will no longer be allowed to stand. Somebody has to speak up for the people of the areas suffering cuts, and it will be the Labour party.