Local Government Finance (England)

Feryal Clark Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) on her maiden speech, and I look forward to working with her in standing up for local government.

I am pleased to speak in this important debate, particularly given my long-standing commitment to this issue, after 14 years’ experience working in local government prior to entering the House—and what experience those 14 years, particularly the last 10, have given me, because since the Conservatives entered government in 2010, our local councils have been attacked and attacked.

A huge chunk of the austerity that started under George Osborne and continues to this day has fallen on local government, but let us be clear about why that has happened. It was not just because the Conservatives are ideologically wedded to slimming down the size of our state and stripping away our frontline public services in the process. It was also one of the most scandalous outsourcing exercises that this country has ever seen. Ministers knew that the services used by many local residents in their daily lives are more likely to be those invested in by their local council, rather than by central Government. That is why we have seen cuts hitting Labour councils the hardest—so that the Conservative party is able to point the finger of blame for the cuts that they have been relentlessly imposing on those of us who have steadfastly opposed them.

Every household that Enfield Council serves now receives the equivalent of £800 less than they did in 2010. Let us think about that figure—£800 per head. That money could be going into funding the local services that my constituents in Enfield North rely on and creating new ones as future challenges emerge. Instead, hard-working Labour councillors have been forced to choose between which services are the least worst cut.

After a decade of these attacks, when there is quite simply nothing else left to cut, essential services are at risk. Who does this hurt the most? It is not the people who are bolstered against financial changes; it is the families on housing waiting lists, and the kids whose youth clubs have had to close. It leads to the abhorrent levels of rough sleeping that we see on our streets.

But it is not just about the amount of funding allocated; it is about the way that money is reaching our areas too. Let us take public health funding, for example. Public health challenges are sometimes unpredictable, numerous and difficult to respond to. That is why it is vital that the funding received by local authorities to meet specific challenges fits the needs of our area at any one time—and yet the baseline public health funding for Enfield Council was set way back in 2013, which means that the amount of funding we receive completely ignores the demographic changes we have seen, our rising health needs and the worsening poverty under this Tory Government.

This is not merely symptomatic of a Government who are asleep at the wheel when it comes to the challenges that our communities face. It highlights Ministers’ willingness to flatly ignore these challenges and keep funding at a totally inadequate level to save money. While the Prime Minister plans spending splurges on bridges to Northern Ireland, communities like mine are left wanting, with community centres forced to close, social care on the brink and people begging on our streets. Those things happen as a result of political choices—the political choices of this Government. It is time that communities like mine in Enfield North got a fair deal, so that we can finally start properly addressing the immeasurable damage that has been done by this Government since 2010.