Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jack Dromey and Robert Neill

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

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

Following a detailed survey of 202 councils, the Local Government Association has confirmed that, because of the scale and speed of the cuts imposed on local government, it stands by its prediction that 140,000 jobs will be lost. This was dismissed by the Secretary of State as a calculation on the back of a fag packet. The calculation includes Tory Hampshire, with 1,200 job losses; Tory Norfolk, with 1,500; and Birmingham, with 2,700 losses in next year alone. Sadly, the LGA got it right and the Secretary of State got it wrong. Will he now apologise?

[Robert Neill]

There is nothing to apologise for, because the error lies with those—including the GMB—who have calculated these scaremongering figures on the basis of HR1 forms, which relate to consultations on possible deletions of vacant posts, changes in work force patterns and voluntary redundancies. They bear no relation at all to compulsory job reductions; the hon. Gentleman should know better.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jack Dromey and Robert Neill

Monday 17th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

I am sure that the hon. Lady will therefore welcome the latest Office for Budget Responsibility forecast, which predicts a total employment rise in 2011 and 1.5 million new private sector jobs being created. I hope that her council will work with the local enterprise partnership and the regional growth fund to achieve those jobs in her area.

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

Halifax will be hard hit by council cutbacks. Halifax council believes that for every job that goes in local government, one will go in the private sector, and that the voluntary sector will also be hard hit. Does the Minister accept, therefore, that this Government are cutting too far, too fast, with no plan for growth and rapidly rising unemployment, and that once again, for this Conservative-led Government, as in the 1980s, unemployment is a price worth paying?

[Robert Neill]

No, sir.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jack Dromey and Robert Neill

Thursday 25th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

Capitalisation, which enables local authorities to treat revenue expenditure as capital and borrow for it is an exception to the accounting rules, so there has always been a need for some control, and capitalisation for a number of streams has never run at 100%. It is also worth bearing in mind that local authorities have been aware for some time that reductions in expenditure were inevitable—they were planned by the previous Government. A shrewd authority will therefore have planned to deal with the problem in advance.

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

Local government now predicts an 11% cut in council budgets next year, with 140,000 jobs lost and a redundancy bill in excess of £2 billion—not the £200 million originally predicted by Ministers. Is local government right? Do Ministers know, or is the truth that they simply do not care about the public servants they will lay off or the public services that they will lay to waste?

[Robert Neill]

The greatest threat to public services for the future is failure to tackle the unprecedented deficit that the previous Government left us. We are prepared to work with local government to deal with those issues, but the hon. Gentleman and his party clearly have no answers whatever.