Guy Opperman
Main Page: Guy Opperman (Conservative - Hexham)(10 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
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Brandon Lewis
This is a good settlement for local government generally. Councils’ spending power is being reduced by just 2.9%, and a reduction of 1.8% is predicted for next year. That will ensure that local authorities can manage. More important, the Government are putting money—taxpayers’ money—into a council tax freeze for the fourth successive year in order to help hard-working people. I hope that all Labour authorities will follow the example of good Conservative and Liberal Democrat authorities and deliver that freeze to their residents.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
On 25 November, in the House, I raised the issue of the council tax benefit support grant, which is not being passed on to all the parish councils in Northumberland. On that occasion, my hon. Friend responded by saying that local authorities should be ensuring that that was done. Has he made any further progress in forcing them to do so?
Brandon Lewis
It is true that a very small number of authorities are not yet passing on the grant, and we are telling them that they should. It is a matter for the authorities themselves, but we made it very clear in today’s written statement that they should be passing the money on to the parish councils.