Local Government Funding

Gordon Birtwistle Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Flint]

Here we go again—let us bash local government and local councillors up and down the country trying to do their best, and let us tell them it is their fault. I do not think there is a local authority in the country that was preparing for this level of cuts. The suggestion is quite ridiculous.

[Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)]

As the MP for Burnley, which has been mentioned on numerous occasions, I would like to advise Members that the Liberal Democrat-controlled council is doing its best under the circumstances. Does the right hon. Lady remember that in the last three years of the Labour Government Burnley received a 0.5% increase in grant from national Government? The Labour Government nailed councils to the wall in their last three years by not financing them properly. It is strange that she is having a go at the coalition Government given that Labour bankrupted the country in the first place.

[Caroline Flint]

I would rather defend an increase, no matter how small, than defend the indefensible, as is happening here today.

Let us look at the disparities. As I have said, a number of councils, including Burnley, are facing the most devastating cuts. At the same time, a handful of district councils in the south-east, including South Cambridgeshire and West Oxfordshire—two of the least deprived areas in the country—could see not a reduction but an increase of up to 30% in their funding, as a consequence of funding that was previously ring-fenced for deprived authorities being rolled into the overall grant.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Marsden]

If the Minister consults the Hansard report of the day in question, he will see that he said what I have quoted, that Mr Speaker said “Order”, and that we moved on to other subjects. There was no reference to what he had said.

The spending review speaks of front-loading, and we heard—unusually, coming from a blunt Yorkshireman—some quite waffly references to it by the Secretary of State. We must wait to find out whether all the waffle produces anything, but I can tell the house that the abolition of the area-based grants, and the effective abolition of the working neighbourhoods fund in the second spending review, have had a devastating effect on towns such as Blackpool, not least because—as was pointed out earlier—it is not just a question of what the working neighbourhoods fund did for the public sector, but of what it was also able to do for the private sector in conjunction with that.

We in Blackpool, like those in several other areas, have experienced a double whammy. We have also been left off the list of areas that will receive funds for decent homes, although our borough and community feature on the index of local deprivation as the 12th most deprived in the country.

Labour Members and, to be fair, one or two Government Members have talked of the knock-on effect on other services. In my area the Connexion service, youth services and other services of that nature have already suffered badly, and are likely to continue to suffer badly if anything like the 16% overall cut that is currently being proposed for Blackpool borough council is imposed.

At this year’s Labour party conference, I went to a fringe meeting that had been organised by Action for Children. It was a good, non-party-political meeting, which discussed the involvement of young people in their local communities. It was attended by some very good youth workers from all over the north-west. Virtually all those people, who were doing good work in their communities, had already lost their jobs or were about to do so, either because of the abolition of the future jobs fund or because of cuts resulting from the area-based grant system.

In case Government Members think that this is simply a bit of propaganda from the Opposition, let me remind them what the chief executive of Blackpool council wrote to me in a letter back in July about the reduction in revenue and capital support. He spoke of cuts of £3 million in the area base grant, £1.3 million in education, £731,000 in local enterprise growth initiatives, £116,000 in Supporting People, and £526,000 in the working neighbourhoods fund. The list could go on. In fact, the north-west generally faced the biggest share of the £1.17 billion of local authority cuts that were announced in June. It lost £1 of every £6 that was cut across the United Kingdom.

[Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)]

I was a Burnley councillor for many years. We had the working neighbourhoods fund, but we were well aware that it would end this year. Were Blackpool councillors not aware of that? We made provision for it.

[Mr Marsden]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I understand that he wishes to mitigate some of the criticism that his own councillors have made of the various settlements, but I remind him that the cuts in area-based grant had to be effected in year, in this year, quite apart from what would happen after 2011.