Funding for Local Authorities

Debate between Graham Stuart and Daniel Kawczynski

Thursday 10th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to take part in this debate. I apologise for my late appearance.

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), who secured it and, I know, led it off ably. I am delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley), although I should say to him that I have not ceased my duties as a chairman of the rural fair share campaign but have been joined by another co-chair, along with the hon. Member for Workington (Sir Tony Cunningham). It is a full, cross-party campaign recognising the inequity in funding.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) put his finger on the core point in his passionate speech. The lowest incomes are found in rural areas, so there is a social justice argument along with the data that we rightly focus on. That social justice argument is hard to rebut, and Ministers in successive Governments have hidden behind an obfuscation of numbers and data. As he said, the simple truth is that people on lower incomes are paying a higher level of tax to get a much thinner—I liked that phrase—level of services.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

My hon. Friend speaks about his group on rural services being all-party. I hope there are more Labour Members in his caucus than there are in the Chamber today.

[Mr Stuart]

My aim, along with my co-chairmen, is and always has been to try not to have a Labour-urban versus Tory/Lib Dem-rural battle—although that is difficult to avoid—but rather to say that we will get our arguments right. Perhaps that explains the modesty of our requests—too modest, perhaps—but our aim has always been to ensure that a fair-minded Labour Member of Parliament who does not represent a rural area would see the weight of the argument. Having come into politics, as we all do, to try to make a fairer and better society, people should see that we are not making a special, partial interest, but a case grounded in facts that will lead to a more just outcome.