Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is a vital issue of concern for all Members on both sides of the House that those who are not registered should be registered. One step that we will soon be piloting is to allow electoral registration officers to compare their databases with other publicly available databases, so that they can literally go from door to door and say, “You’re on this database, but you’re not on that one,” and thereby encourage people to register. Drawing international comparisons, our registration rates of just over 90% are pretty respectable, but of course we want to continue to do whatever we can to raise that standard even further.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Birmingham city council will today vote through the biggest local government cuts in history, with cuts of £212 million for next year. Two weeks ago the council’s deputy leader, Liberal Democrat Councillor Paul Tilsley, wrote to The Times protesting against the cuts, but 24 hours later he signed the budget. As the Deputy Prime Minister believes in restoring faith in politics, how would he describe the actions of Councillor Tilsley, or is he too on a slippery slope?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

All local authorities of whatever political persuasion are clearly facing a very tough local government finance settlement, and we have never hidden the fact that it is extremely difficult. I think there is a great deal of discretion in how local councils can respond to those same pressures, however. For example, I am very struck by the fact that in Sheffield, the city where I am an MP, the Liberal Democrat council has kept every library and swimming pool open and has not made any major cuts to adult social services, and only 270 people will be laid off next year, whereas across the Pennines in Labour-controlled Manchester, 2,500 people have been laid off and almost everything has been closed across the whole city. In Birmingham, as in all great cities, difficult decisions are being made, and I trust that they are being made in a way that safeguards the services for the most vulnerable in that city.